


Time, Blood, and Tears

by Lunamichi



Category: Homestuck, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Adventure, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunamichi/pseuds/Lunamichi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is it worth it to go back over and over again just to watch everyone around you die? Is it worth living in ignorance and fear while not telling him your true feelings?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. T,B,T

**Author's Note:**

> AU in the Puella Magi Madoka Magica universe with some Homestuck characters.
> 
> No magical outfits in this fiction were fully described so you can interpret them as anyway you wish or you can see them like in the magicastuck tumblr blog like how I do.

There are two protagonists in this story. Both young students just living through their childhood before heading to adulthood. Both watching each other but hiding what they truly think. In this tale you can choose to see it through the view of either the one who hides his eyes and refusing to see another path or the one who hides his heart and refuses to tell what’s on his mind.

The tale is the same but who knows how different it is in the view of the other. You can decide to read just one of them or both. But here you decide which you wish to read first.

Chapter 2: Time, Blood and Tears (Dave's POV: 19.2k words)

Chapter 3: Blood Time and Tears (Karkat's POV: 19.4k words)


	2. Time, Blood, and Tears

The demon roared in the distance as it continued to wreak havoc in the city. You were there once again on your knees over his tired and worn out body under the grim grey sky. The two of you were the last of your friends to take on the Reagent but now he too would turn into a demon. It was impossible to take on your friends turned demon/witch while taking on the high demon Reagent English from the start. Yet the both of you still tried and the end result was the same. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were supposed to change things but the end was always the same. Using the last grief seed he had he saved you and once again asked you to kill him before he turned into a demon. You couldn’t do it, not again, you had done it too many times to count and it killed you inside every time.

“I should have never made that fucking contract . . .” he spoke weakly.

Of course. The answer was so simple. You should have done it from the start. This time you would protect him and take on the Reagent by yourself. You took his hand in yours, “I promise I won’t let this happen to you. I won’t let you go through all of this again. I swear.”

“Please,” his voice shook as his hand slightly gripped onto yours. The grip tightened suddenly as his other hand gripped at his chest and he let out a cry of pain, “Hurry, K-Kill me now.”

_No._

“P-please kill me!”

_Don’t do this to me again._

“DAVE KILL ME NOW!”

*********************************************************************************

A silence was broken by the chirps of singing birds. Light found its way to seep through the cracks of the blinds into the dark room. You slowly looked around and found yourself sitting on the floor of your room. You had gone back again. You couldn’t even remember how many times it had been now. You just knew it was something you had to prevent and you would go back as many times as it took to bring the best possible outcome and to save them. The clock let off an alarm indicating the time to leave. Looking into the mirror your eyes appeared to glow in the dim room. With a determined look you slipped on your sunglasses, grabbed your bag, and headed out the door. With a better plan in mind you were sure you would save him this time.

You had gone back a few days earlier than normal making sure to arrive before he made the contract with that little no faced monster and the difference set you off a bit. You also had to stop your best friend from convincing him to join your little crusade of witch and demon hunters. If you remembered correctly this was the day where he discovered witches and demons from hanging out with your friend today and getting sucked into a witch’s realm. Perhaps if you stopped him from discovering at least that then he would no longer get involved and you could plan on how to take on the Reagent with your group alone.

You arrived early and found John chatting away with the girls. Lucky for you he wouldn’t arrive until a few minutes later. He was always just on time, never late, never early.

“Yo John let’s hang out at that café by the arcade after class.”

“Hey Dave! Wow did you read my mind or something? I was about to ask you the same thing and invite Karkat too!”

“Nah man. Can’t invite our finely tempered friend this time.”

“What why not?”

“I got a witch hit. One got away from me before and I’ve been tracking it. Thing is gonna show up there today.”

“Should we come too?” Jade asked.

“It’s okay we got this. I’ve figured out all its tricks so me and John can handle this.”

“You should take that grief seed Dave. Your soul gem has been looking a little dark lately,” Rose stated with concern.

“Don’t worry Lalonde I’ll be fine,”” you replied as the bell rung.

“Morning Karkat!” John called towards the door as the boy in question walked in. There he was with his scruffy dark hair and trademark scowl. With a silent wave he took his seat in front of you. Everyone else too their seats as class begun and you spent the time staring at the back of his head instead of listening to the lecture you had already heard before. That small frame was always standing in front of you, to protect you, to lead, to attack first, and to stand tall against all odds. You always found yourself behind him, watching, but this time you would be the one to protect him.

At lunch you escaped with John to the roof to discuss tactics on how to defeat the witch after school. You had lied about it being a witch you was tracking down but you did know how it fought considering their previous almost failed attempt. Rose had actually gotten severely wounded from the scheming witch, which was why you decided that the girls should stay back this time. Sure it would be easier to fight with the girls especially if you were to plan with all together but you had enough of seeing them get hurt. Aside from that, with a strategy in mind the two of you could take it down easy and you wouldn’t have to worry about Karkat this time.

Back in class you found him staring at you with a frown, “Something on my face?”

“Where were you and John all lunch?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh I forgot to tell you and the girls that we were helping the music teacher move stuff around all lunch. Old lady can’t move pianos by herself you know,” a blatant lie but a good cover up since Karkat never set foot into the music room.

“Didn’t know we had to report everything to you mother. We’re oh so sorry,” you smirked at him. He just glared at the two of you before turning around to pay attention to class.

Waiting for the end of lectures was like the calm before the storm. Whatever happened from here on out would be what leads to the end result. You really didn’t want to go back again, you were getting tired of this farce but if need be you would go back. For your friends and for him. But you weren’t sure how many times you could go back before breaking entirely.

The bell rang and you began to head out with John. You didn’t expect Karkat to just casually walk with you two.

“So where are we going today?” he asked mostly directed at John.

“Uh. I’m heading home. Got lots of homework and um I’m busy all weekend so gotta finish it all today,” John quickly thought up an excuse.

“What? But you’re always dragging me places on Fridays. Even when I’m busy,” he then looked at you with a scowl, “And what’s your excuse?”

“I’m always a busy man. Not like you’re too keen on hanging out with me alone now are you?” you raised a brow at him. He quickly turned away and walked ahead of you.

“Fine whatever. See you two assholes on Monday,” he left first as John let out a relieved breath.

“Thought he was gonna catch on and pry more or something haha.”

“Good luck you two. Don’t hesitate to call us if you do require assistance,” Rose advised as she was leaving with Jade.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing Lalonde. Have some faith in me and Egbert.”

“We worry because it’s just you two doofuses going in alone. But I think we can trust you to take on one little witch by yourselves as long as you two don’t do anything stupid.”

“Please Jade,” John scoffed at their long haired friend, “Me and Dave can take on anything as a pair.”

“Alright I get it, the two unstoppable best bros. Just call us or send a message to let us know you took care of it okay?” Jade smiled at the two trying to hide the concern on her face. With a casual ‘see you later’ the boys and girls parted ways.

“Hey Dave you okay?” your best bro asked as you left the school grounds, “You seem a little tense.”

You hesitated to answer. Of course your best friend would have noticed you brooding, “Striders and tense don’t go together man. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You just seem a little off today or is the word edgy? Especially after Karkat talked to us after lunch. Didn’t look like you seemed calm during lectures. Something bothering you dude?”

You went silent for a bit to think of a good answer. Perhaps if you told them what you had been doing in the past repeated weeks they could help you in protecting him and plan in advance on what to do about the great demon arriving in their city by the end of the week, “. . . I’ll tell you after we beat this thing first okay?”

“Okay sounds good! Let’s take care of that trouble maker!” you were thankful for your understanding friend.

The two of you arrived at the café and casually slipped towards the back alley unnoticed. There you could see the entrance to the witch’s realm. You two gave each other a glance and a nod before heading inside. The morphed world absorbed you entirely and like usual the two of you wouldn’t be able to leave until the thing escaped or you took care of it. This witch was spider themed with dark and dusty areas filled with cobwebs and little dancing spiders crawling all over. This one was tricky because it had duplicates of itself, 8 of them in total to be exact. None were an illusion so they could hurt you but only hitting the real one would bring it down. You had memorized the pattern of the real one so the two of you would just have to aim for that single one and quickly cut it down. Beside you John already changed into his gear and held his hammer over his shoulder, looking at you expectantly. Pulling out your soul gem you examined the red being a little darkened but it would soon be fixed.

With the familiar weight of you blade in your right hand you led the way, “Let’s go.”

The little spiders just watched as you two ran through straight to the big boss. The sooner you got rid of the thing the sooner you could meet up with the girls to plan on what to do a week in advance. With John’s leadership skills along with Rose and Jade’s intuition helping it would be a lot better than trying to take on that demon by yourself all the while making sure Karkat doesn’t find out about all this magical children business.

In the deepest part of the witch’s domain the two of you stood in a large open area standing back to back waiting for the witch to arrive. The little ones began scampering away and all went quiet. The first one appeared in front of you and hissed. Soon the others arrived and surrounded the two of you. The two of you circled around trying to find the real one.

“Dave which one is it?” John asked a little bit panicked. It shouldn’t have been that hard to find. You looked carefully at each large spider sitting around you. None of them had the pattern you were looking for which meant they were all fake. So you started counting them. 

1,2,3 – One of them jumped and the two of you jumped in separate directions to avoid it.

4,5 – Another tried to shoot it’s web at you to hold you down but missed.

6 – From behind, John’s cry of attack rang in the air followed by a crunch from him probably landing a hit.

7 - . . . Seven just seven. One was missing and that one had to be the real one but where was it? You cut off a few legs of the one nearest to you and it shrieked out in pain as you tried to regroup with John.

“One’s missing!” you told him once you were back to back again.

“What? Then where is it?”

“Trying to look for it now.”

“Dave above us!” John pointed up.

After hacking at another fake you looked up and saw an impossibly gigantic web with the real witch sitting right in the middle. It looked like it was just waiting for the fakes to finish you off or to later come down to deal the finishing blow once you two were tired.

“Wh- Oh my god Karkat!” John’s sudden shout made your eyes widen and your heartbeat quicken. You looked to the side of the web and saw an unconscious boy spun into the web. It was hard not to recognize that scruffy hair. But what the hell was he doing there?

“John baseball shot!” you cried. John used his special powers of wind to clear some room for the two of you to move. John set his hammer down low and you stepped onto it, crouched down, and held on. He spun in one circle before swinging you straight up towards the web and giving you a wind boost. The witch noticed you flying up towards Karkat so it started moving towards him. You held your blade behind you in preparation. As soon as you made it there you found that he was awake and not unconscious and he was staring at you with wide surprised eyes. Instead of aiming for Karkat to free him from the web, you pointed your sword at the witch and stabbed right through it and its web. The creature cried as it fell taking the web with it and with it broken the bonds of Karkat became loosing making the boy fall as well. You made it to the edge of the realm and stepped on it before pushing yourself off to boost yourself towards Karkat and catching him in midair. He was too shocked to scream.

The fakes began to scream as well before shaking and shrivelling into dust. John jumped out of the way as the witch fell and watched as the realm began to fade. You landed with so much grace one wonders why you weren’t a cat. Karkat just clung to you the entire time even when you tried to put him down to stand he was still hanging onto your shirt. John ran up to you once he saw that you two were okay and that the witch would no longer attack.

“What the fuck just happened?” Karkat asked a little quietly as he hesitantly let you go.

“No the bigger question here is what the fuck are you doing here!?” you suddenly found yourself yelling at him. He flinched and backed away from you, startled by the sudden uncharacteristic outburst. You didn’t even realize you were mad until now. You had taken all the precautions yet somehow he was still part of the scene. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You were supposed to prevent it.

“You two were being all suspicious all fucking day so I followed you okay! I thought you two were being assholes and keeping me out of things and I didn’t expect whatever the fuck just happened!” he shouted back at you, “What even was all that!? What the hell is with your outfit!?”

“Hey man just calm down first,” John back in his normal clothes put a hand on one of Karkat’s shoulders. 

The boy whipped around and smacked John’s hands away, “No I want a fucking explanation!”

“Well um,” John grabbed his left arm with his right hand and looked down before swinging his hand in the air a bit to try to think of an answer, “We’re sort of-”

“No, we don’t need to explain a single fucking thing,” you cut John off, “Ever heard of mind your own business Karkat? You don’t need to know because it’s none of your business. See because you decided to snoop around you got caught and got in the way. From now on whenever we tell you we’re busy you fuck off alright. Now go home and think about what you’ve done.”

You turned and picked up your bag that was left by the entrance of the alley and walked away. You had never been so angry in your life. You had tried to keep him away yet the little shit still followed you anyways.

“Whoa hey Dave! Wait up! Um sorry Karkat but you really should go home,” John scooped up the grief seed, grabbed his bag and ran after you, “Dave hey! Dude hold up!”

You just kept walking as he caught up to you. You said nothing as he attempted to glare at you.

“Dave you forgot the grief seed.”

“Don’t need it.”

Your best friend sighed at you, “Then show me you don’t need it.”

“I said I don’t need it.”

“Rose is going to lecture both our ears off if you do not take care of your Soul Gem,” he then stuck his hand into your pocket freely and pulled out a small egg like object. You shouted at him but he held it away from you when you tried to grab it back. He then stuck his tongue out at you and looked at your soul gem, “Dave it’s so dark and murky! You’re crazy! What if you turned into a demon!”

He frowned at you and you just looked away as he tapped the grief seed onto the gem and absorbing the darkness. Your soul gem sparkled a bright red once again and the seed clouded, “Geesh one time use. This definitely can’t be used again or else it will turn back into a witch. You are crazy.”

He tossed your soul gem back to you and you pocketed it. He pocketed the grief seed to give to that creature next time he saw it. If it was smart it would avoid appearing before you at the moment. Things went quiet for about a minute before John spoke again.

“Hey why don’t we just tell Karkat about us.”

“No. That is the worst idea ever. We’re doing dangerous shit here John do you want him to get all caught up on that? What you want him to join us too? What’s he going to wish for? Is he just going to waste his life on something stupid so he can risk his new messed up life trying to help us? John our wishes were for a reason. He doesn’t have to wish for anything so we shouldn’t drag him into this. Danger is around every corner so it’s better if he doesn’t know at all.”

“Oh . . . I guess you’re right about that.”

“So don’t tell him anything okay John. Remember Jade? We don’t want that to happen again do we?”

He looked down, “No . . . you’re right. Sorry.”

“But you don’t know that. I think he’d make a very powerful magical child,” an eerie voice reached your ears. You stopped abruptly and turned to see that no faced fucked up cat creature sitting on a fence, “You can’t tell if he doesn’t have an important wish or not like you did.”

Within a split second you changed into your gear. Your sword swung fast and you chopped the monster’s head clean off.

“DAVE HOLY SHIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” John cried out.

You stood straight and your gear disappeared with your sword as the headless body fell in front of you. It felt good to kill it even if it technically really didn’t. You turned to your left and found it sitting there watching you with no face.

“Well that wasn’t very nice of you,” it rolled its head and walked past its dead body before hopping onto the fence once again.

“Oh my god Dave what are you doing,” John grabbed your arm as if trying to stop you in case you tried to do it again.

“There is no need to worry John I cannot die but that attack was uncalled for,” it tilted its creepy assed no faced head as if trying to be cute or something. It just made you want to stab through its head this time.

“Just stay the fuck away from him you got that Scratch,” you glared at the thing and then stalked off.

John grimaced at the dead body of Scratch before tossing the darkened grief seed towards the live one to take care of. He soon caught up to you and silently walked beside you. You both stopped at the point where you were supposed to go separate ways.

“Dave are you okay?” John asked concerned.

“Just a little stressed out. We should gather the girls tomorrow and meet up so I can tell you guys what’s eating at me.”

“You sure you don’t want to tell me now?”

“No . . . I just . . . I think I need some rest. It’s been a long day.”

“Okay then I’ll tell the girls and tell you what time to meet up and where okay?”

“Sounds good. Thanks man. Sorry for acting all different.”

“It’s fine. A little weird since it’s not really you but everyone has their off days. Makes you human dude. Can’t pull off that cool streak forever,” he patted your shoulder and headed in the other direction, “Don’t do anything else weird or I’ll think you’re a Dave clone haha okay see you tomorrow dork!”

“Hey if any one of us is the dork then it’s you!” you called to him with a smile before heading home yourself.

The smile disappeared with a sigh and you began to think of a way to tell your friends the plan. The battle with the Reagent was going to be tough but the four of you should be able to take it on with a good enough plan. You looked up at the apartment complex you lived in before watching as that one random bird looked at you back and flew straight into the wall before falling. This was where it was supposed to fall to its death on the road but you caught it this time. It fluttered in shock and quickly flew away. Walking into your home you found your brother working on something in the kitchen.

“Hey lil man do I have a surprise for you.”

“Sorry Bro not hungry for lasagna tacos right now. Maybe later,” you replied before heading to your room.

“How the hell did you know we were going to have lasagna tacos,” he looked at you with a disappointed face, surprise ruined.

“Saw your prep in the fridge this morning,” you lied. You just remembered from experiencing it already. Before going into your room you stopped to look at him. He was the reason why you were a magical child in the first place but you honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. You had the power to fix things so you would keep at it until everything was fine, “I’ll come back out to eat in a bit after some homework okay.”

He looked at you like he understood something was wrong. Even if he didn’t know what the situation was it always felt that he knew you needed space, “Sure thing. Try to get it while it’s still hot but I’ll wrap some up for you to heat up later if you take a while.”

“Thanks,” after a nod towards him you slipped into your room and flopped onto your bed. You really hoped things would work out this time.

Your phone let off a notification.

_alright so we’re meeting at my house tomorrow at like 2._

_sounds good see you tomorrow_

_make sure to tell us everything okay dave? you don’t have to take on everything on your own we are friends for a reason._

_don’t worry i will_

Well at least you would try to.

*****************************************************************************

The next day you gathered at John’s house and sat in his room ready to plan after Mr. Egbert generously left a plate of cookies and drinks for you guys. Rose and Jade sat on John’s bed, John sitting on his computer chair backwards and you sitting on the corner of his computer desk.

“So . . . I heard Karkat followed you guys and sort of found out,” Jade broke the silence that had somehow started since Mr. Egbert had left, “Dave did you really yell at him? That’s not like you.”

You looked down.

“John tells us you have something you need to say. Is it part of the reason why you’ve been acting odd and edgy?” Rose questioned.

“Yeah . . . but first. I don’t think we should explain to Karkat what’s going on. It’s just too dangerous.”

“Okay but I don’t think you had to yell at him yesterday,” John apprehensively gave you a glance.

“I just. Yes fine that was uncalled for but he shouldn’t have followed us. I didn’t think he was that kind of stupidly curious guy. What if we hadn’t noticed him in the web and the thing ate him before we killed it?”

“But we did save him.”

“Dave what’s bothering you,” Rose slightly frowned.

You sighed and crossed your arms, “Okay do you know about that great demon called Reagent English.”

“That powerful one that has a tendency to level cities? Then yes . . . Don’t tell me . . .”

“Yeah, our city’s next on his list. At the end of the week too. It’s going to be insane. More witches and demons will be coming throughout the week. It’s going to be tough and it’s going to be crazy unsafe. We’re the only ones here that can take care of it and if we don’t there goes the city.”

“What’s wrong with asking for help then? Why do you have to keep me out of it?” you stood up and whipped you head towards the extra voice. Karkat came out from hiding in John’s closet and gave you a defiant look.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” you glared at John. He shook his head at you and looked towards the girls.

“I think we should tell him,” Jade spoke up, “He should know what’s going on because he’s our friend but we won’t let him join in with us. We have to let him know to at least understand why he shouldn’t help us. I know you’re concerned about what happened to me but I would’ve hated to not have known too. I wasn’t careful when I followed you guys around, but we’ll make sure Karkat knows the dangers so he doesn’t do anything stupid like I did.”

She gave you a pleading look. You just sat back down again with a grumble and looked away. As long as he didn’t make a contract with that devil creature then fine whatever.

“Yeah so please just explain to me what the hell is going on!”

“Calm down and come sit with us,” Rose moved over and patted the spot between her and Jade. He just stood there for a moment before obeying, afraid that the four of you would deny telling him anything if he didn’t oblige.

“Well to start off we have super powers!”

“John don’t give him the silly explanation!” Jade rolled her eyes at him.

“What it’s true.”

“To be more specific we are magical children.”

“The fuck does that mean,” he frowned. The face turned into shock when Jade and Rose suddenly changed into their magical girl outfits after smiling at each other.

“Magical children have special powers and weapons that can fight against demons and witches,” Rose explained as she held her wands in front of her. Jade held up her intimidating rifle as well.

“Did you guys always have these powers and hid them from me all this time?”

“We’ve only had them for about a year though. Jade half a year,” John rested his chin on the back of his chair.

“We gained these powers through wishes and a contract with a certain creature,” Rose leaned back and twirled one of her wands, “For any wish you desire you become a magical child and fight against witches and demons in return.”

“What kind of wish would you make to have to do stupid dangerous stuff like that?”

“A year ago my mother along with John’s father and Dave’s older brother had gone together to go get some supplies they had forgotten when we went on a camping trip. We waved at them as the car was leaving the campsite onto the highway and . . .” she paused and placed her wand down.

“An idiotic speeding truck crushed their small sedan,” you picked up where she left off. From the corner of your eye you saw John’s fist tighten a bit, “A faceless cat creature came up to us a little bit too soon after. We made a contract with it to bring our guardians back.”

Karkat looked as if he wanted to say something but then decided against it as if he was afraid it would be stupid. He then glanced at Jade. She gave him a small sad smile. 

“I soon found out about their powers since they kept sneaking away just by themselves. The only reason why I wasn’t with them during that camping trip was because I was out of the country with my grandpa that summer,” she then took a long breath in and out, “I liked joining them and watching as they fought against the demons and witches. I was like wow it’s so cool to be friends with heroes secretly protecting the city!”

“But it was dangerous,” John hid half his face behind his arms and looked away.

“ . . . A demon distracted them and attacked me. On the verge of death Scratch appeared and I wished for my life. Oh Scratch is the faceless cat creature by the way.”

“You . . . died?” he said hesitantly while looking at her.

“If Scratch didn’t grant my wish then I probably would have.”

“Not like we’re really alive either . . .” you mumbled.

“What does that mean?” he furrowed his eyes at you.

“Okay who wants to do the demonstration?”

“I’ll do it,” John took out his soul gem and held it out. Karkat eyed it curiously. Rose waved at John and he tossed the blue egg like object towards her. She caught it, changed back to her normal outfit and left the room.

“What was that?” Karkat looked at John’s closed door where Rose had just left.

Jade changed back to her normal clothes as well and pulled out her soul gem placing it in Karkat’s hands, “When we become a magical child each of us get this. It’s called a soul gem. Without this we can’t change into our cool hero outfits and fight against the demons. When we transform it turns into an accessory somewhere on our outfits. But the catch is . . .”

She paused and watched as John’s eyes grew dim and his body slumped out of his chair. You quickly caught the lifeless body and watched as Karkat’s eyes widened. Shifting John so that he was easy to carry you pulled out your cell to text Rose to come back.

“Soul gem means our souls are placed in those crystals. If the gem is too far away from us then the body no longer functions. If the gem breaks then we die . . .”

Horrified Karkat gave Jade back her soul gem and looked at John with worry, “Is he . . .”

“Technically yes he is dead. It’s a soulless body right now and if the gem stays away from the body for too long it will become useless for him to use it. Rose is coming back right now though so don’t worry about it he will be fine,” you explained to him, “So yeah if some freaky faceless white cat appears don’t listen to a word it says no matter how much it sugar coats it. Whatever you wish for you’ll be making a contract with the devil and trading your soul for it. So don’t do it.”

He gripped the bed sheets under him and looked down trying to process what he had just learned. You and Jade stayed silent until Rose returned and placed John’s soul gem onto his chest. Within a minute life returned to his eyes and he slowly sat up making his gem fall. You noticed Karkat eyeing the gem the entire time.

“Oh oops,” he picked it up and quickly pocketed it before sitting on his computer chair again, “So uh was that all we needed to explain?”

“Let’s see. I think all that’s left is to make sure Karkat understands and doesn’t come with us when we take on witches and demons,” Jade tapped her chin.

“It’s okay. I get it now . . . sorry for being annoying and prying about it.”

“It’s okay Karkat. I understand how it is to hate not knowing what’s going on and your friends keeping things from you,” Jade placed a sympathetic hand on his, “We’re telling you now so we can protect you. We don’t want you to question why we suddenly go places without you and then you following and getting hurt like with what happened yesterday.”

“Sorry . . .”

“No need to be sorry Karkat. We’re sorry you suddenly had to learn about us like this. It’s quite frightening I know,” Rose stated.

Karkat moved forward, put his elbows on his knees and held his head, “You guys have been risking your lives for the past year and I only figure this out now. If I ever wanted to help you I’d have to trade my soul to a devil creature. Yeah sounds great. Holy shit . . .”

You glanced at Jade then at John who looked like they felt really bad for Karkat. You would have too if you hadn’t known this was a lot better for him and for everyone else. As long as he knew it was a really bad idea to become a magical child and didn’t want to come along or interfere when you were fighting demons and witches then things should work out fine.

“As long as you understand and don’t try to act heroic by trying to help us then things should be alright. Please don’t think of us too differently. We just want to stay friends with you if that’s alright.”

“Yeah that’s fine but how the hell can I just casually keep going when I know you’re risking youy lives out there like this?”

“Our lives are already gone Karkat you don’t have to worry about that. Just stay out of it trouble and you’ll be fine. Right now we have to plan about how we’re going to take on the Reagent. You’re free to stay and listen if you want as long as you don’t decide to jump in and help,” you reiterated.

“No I think I’m going to go home now . . .” you watched him still looking down looking shocked with a hint of fear in it. It was better this way.

“You could help us plan?” John attempted to still include him somehow. He wanted to avoid shutting him out completely.

“No I’ll just get in the way. . . Good luck I guess. See you guys Monday . . .” he quietly got up and headed out. You all stayed silent as he left the room. Jade let out a sigh. With a tsk you went after Karkat.

“Hey!” he stopped halfway down the stairs and looked back up at you, “Sorry . . . for yelling at you yesterday.”

“Sorry for yelling back at you. I understand now. You were just looking out for me,” he looked away again completely dejected.

“I’m serious though if you do see that cat thing don’t listen to a word it says no matter how much it sugar coats this magical deal. It’s a devil in disguise. Be careful.”

He looked up back straight into your eyes. He couldn’t see you staring back but he could probably feel it. In his eyes you saw fear and genuine concern. Something you had seen to many times before and something inside you sounded like it was cracking, “You be careful too. All of you.”

His fists were clenched and he paused as if he wanted to say he wanted to help. As if to say ‘if you do need help just tell me’ but he could tell by all your reactions and from yesterday that none of you wanted that, especially with what had happened with Jade. His shoulders and hands then loosened as he turned and continued down the stairs. You took a few steps down the stairs and watched as he looked at you one last time at the door before leaving and closing the front door quietly behind him. You shook your head and headed back to John’s room. It would be alright. The four of you would plan to take down the Reagent while Karkat would keep his distance and not make a contract since he was already informed of the danger. All would be well.

“Did we do the right thing guys?” John asked once you returned. He was slouched over his chair and looked a little depressed.

“We did it to protect him and he took it pretty well. We should concentrate on the Reagent now or else he will be the least of our worries to protect. What we’ve wished for would be for naught if we do not take it down,” Rose sat straight, “Now let’s start planning. Throughout the week more demons and witches will be appearing as well so we must take care of them before they cause too many casualties. We may have to set times to scout the city too.”

“We’ll take turns. We’ll do whatever it takes. We can do this. Nothing can stop us guys come on we’re the strongest witch and demon hunters in this city,” you said with determination. All three at them smiled at you.

“We’re the only demon and witch hunters in this city doofus,” John grinned but didn’t disagree with you.

“And we’ll take them all down. We won’t let those monsters over take our city!” Jade cheered.

You had a good feeling about this. Things were finally turning around.

***************************************************************************

“Dave duck!” Rose shouted. You hit the floor as she sent a blast from her wands towards the witch you were trying to hold off. She shrieked at the direct hit and blew up above you. A relieved breath escaped Rose once the witch’s realm began to fade and the grief seed made a small ‘tink’ sound when it fell in front of you.

“She was a toughie,” you got up after grabbing the grief seed and rolled your shoulders.

“Yes the vampire almost got me too,” Rose put a hand at her neck and grimaced where a small scratch was. The witch would have torn off her neck if you had not pulled it backwards. The thing tried to bite you too and you fought back long enough for Rose to charge up a fatal attack. You held the seed out to her as the realm disappeared completely, “Here you go.”

“Dave yours is darker than mine,” she raised a brow at you.

It had been 5 days since you had planned at John’s house and since then witches and demons had been appearing left and right relentlessly. They knew the Reagent would arrive soon and they all came to await his arrival. When school came around again it seemed like Karkat was avoiding the four of you. Aside from returning greetings he said nothing more. John and Jade attempted conversation at lunch but could not ask to have him come and ‘hang out’ with them since you were all busy trying to keep the city safe until Reagent English was taken care of.

“Mine is not, yours is. Rose take it,” you held the grief seed out further towards her.

“Then let’s take out our gems to compare,” changing back to her normal clothes she held out her darkened purplish soul gem. You took yours out too and held it beside hers. They were both pretty dark but Rose looked a tiny bit darker to you anyways. 

“Yours is darker,” you moved the hand with the grief seed and was about to put it near gem but then she shoved your hand a little and it ended up hitting yours instead. The little sneak. You frowned at her.

“You’re the more reckless one anyways,” she smirked at you, “I can survive another round compared to you.”

“Not if you pull another attack like that again,” you pocketed the darkened seed and your gem.

“I told you. I’m more careful than you anyways do not worry. It’s not like I’m going to go and take on a witch or demon all on my own now. Luckily for me I have a brave knight by my side,” she just casually walked ahead as she smiled.

“Yeah lucky you,” you pulled your phone out and found a text from John.

_just finished off a crazy bull demon. how are things on your end dude?_

_rose almost got her neck bitten off by a vampire witch and then blew it up hey you wouldnt happen to have an extra grief seed would you_

_no sorry man but jade and my gems are pretty clear so we can give the next one to you guys if we find another witch or demon to fight._

_thanks man rose one uped me and put the one we just got on mine when she needed it more_

_haha i feel you she did the same thing to me before. jade is the only one that has not succumbed to her trickery well so far. we’ll make sure the next one goes to her for sure!_

_awesome were going to scout around a bit more before going back home_

_same here. You have scout duty tonight right?_

_yeah so see you in a bit and you guys give me all your dark seeds so I can give it to the little beast later_

_kay see ya!_

As you put away your phone you noticed Rose looking down with a thoughtful and concerned look on her face.

“What’s up?” you asked her.

“Can we really take on the Reagent with just the 4 of us?”

“Rose what are you saying of course we can. Don’t tell me the great Rose Lalonde actually thinks we’re too weak to take on some demon.”

“Not just some demon. One that is proclaimed to be the king of all demons which in turn gave him the title of Reagent,” she gave you a look, “Maybe we should just run and hide with our families.”

“And let our city get destroyed? Our home? We have the power to stop it so we should take the chance to take care of it.”

“I don’t know I just have a really bad feeling . . . I think it would be better if we just left and wait for it to pass. We could always rebuild the city. It is better than risking our lives. I honestly think our chances of defeating it are slim here.”

“Rose come on. What’s with the sudden change in plans? You were so into it a couple of days ago. Like the rest of us you thought we had to take it down now so it doesn’t terrorize other cities and that it would be rude of us to just let it to the other magical kids to take care of.”

She shrugged which was odd of her, “I don’t know. Like I said I just have a bad feeling.”

You stood in front of her and put your hands on her shoulders, “But it’s just a feeling. Rose just calm down. We can do this. We can take on anything together. All four of us, we’re unstoppable.”

She sighed before smiling at you, “Alright you have me convinced Mr. Strider.”

“Now repeat after me. I am Rose Lalonde and I know we can beat Reagent English.”

She rolled her eyes but complied, “I am Rose Lalonde and I know we can beat Reagent English.”

“There see. Bad feelings all washed away,” you gave her a smile but couldn’t help taking what she said to heart. Rose rarely had bad feelings about anything. 

You walked with her for fifteen more minutes, there were no demon or witch auras around so you left to meet up with John and Jade. Unfortunately it seemed there like were no other witches or demons in the entire vicinity so your group would have to find Rose a grief seed the next day. You just hoped she wouldn’t exert herself. The day the Reagent would come was too soon. They couldn’t afford any more mistakes or setbacks when you had already come so far. The day of judgement was nearing.

When you came back home you found your brother watching TV. After a casual ‘hey’ and grabbing some dinner you headed to your room. After filling in your homework sheets quickly since you knew the answer from doing them over and over again, you quickly scarfed down your food before throwing your jacket on and grabbing your iPod. You opened you window about halfway before your brother suddenly entered without warning. The two of you proceeded to have a little stare off while frozen in place for a full minute before he spoke up.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going?” he raised a brow and crossed his arms. You did not expect this. You thought he was going to just sit on his ass watching TV all night. No that was what was supposed to happen. What made things different this time?

“Out,” was all you said.

“Where you going?”

“For a walk.”

“How long?”

“All night,” you weren’t lying. You just didn’t lie to your brother. It wasn’t a thing you two did. You were just going to scout all night after all, only take on witches or demons if they were alone and you were sure you could take them or track their movements so you could take them on the next day with the others. Usually he understood and you hoped he would this time as well.

“Why?” his raised brow lowered and you felt a serious gaze boring in your direction.

“Clears the head.”

“You’ll be back by morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Going to sleep at school or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait right there,” you moved away from the window and stood there as Bro left. He came back within two minutes with a small bag, walking in and holding it out to you. Hesitantly you took it and peeked in to find two plastic wrapped sandwiches inside with five boxes of apple juice in it, “Watch out for drunkards, don’t knock up some chick and as long as you don’t come back wasted then you can come back through the front door.”

“Uh . . . thanks,” you blinked at the strange gesture. You had thought he would push further and not let you go until you told him everything.

“Also . . .” the tone of his voice changed. It was weird and soft with concern in it, “You know you can tell me if anything is bothering you right?”

Oh. Of course. Even John picked out how strange you were acting so your brother would have as well, “. . . There’s something I have to do. I can’t really tell you but I’ll be back. I promise and I’ll be fine.”

It was strange seeing your brother like this. Yeah you knew he could be concerned but he showed it in little ways with notes or actions not full out confronting you face to face with it. The face of slight worry quickly disappeared and was replaced by a smirk as he ruffled your hair, “Aw my lil man’s growing up. But remember call me if there’s anything you can’t handle.”

“Okay say I’m growing up and still make sure I call you if I get in trouble, sure thing mom.”

“It’s only natural. Any sane mother would be concerned and make sure their kids calls back. I’m just more lenient and not asking you to call me every ten minutes.”

You both let out a breath of amusement, “. . . Thanks Bro.”

“Anytime,” you headed out and closed your window. He gave you one last thumbs up, you return it and headed up the fire escape to the roof. 

You took in a deep breath of the night air, thankful of your understanding brother and hopped onto the next roof. You ran and jumped on top of other buildings until you reached the center of the city. There you could scan to see and feel if there were any strange disturbances around the city. Sitting at your favourite ledge you took out the first apple juice box of the night. Your enjoyment of the seemingly calm night soon ended when Scratch hopped up beside you.

“Fine night isn’t it,” the creature attempted conversation. You just sipped on your juice and threw the darkened grief seeds you had collected from the others at it. The creature’s back opened and caught all the seeds with ease.

“Now what I find odd is how you had known about the Reagent’s arrival so early. The only signs of his coming would have been the increase of witches and demons but you knew before it had just begun.”

You ignored it and just kept sipping on your juice.

“You know the four of you are not powerful enough to take him on.”

Sip.

“If another person joined you perhaps you would have a better chance.”

You finished your juice and crushed the box as your other hand went for the neck of the cat creature. It just waited as you threw away the juice box and glared at the thing, “Karkat doesn’t need to join us. He doesn’t have a wish and only desperate idiots like us would make a cursed contract with you. He’s not like us. He’s better than that and he doesn’t need to be some magical shit.”

“But being a magical being is far superior than being a pathetic human. You should know. It has made your life better and it would for him as well. I can tell he would be a very powerful magical child.”

You gritted your teeth and threw the thing of the tall building. You watched it fall and hit the ground. From there it definitely would have died but of course another one would annoyingly show up.

“That’s the second time you’ve killed me now,” it tilted its head at you after appearing at your other side, “It’s futile. No matter how many times you kill me I will come back.”

“Doesn’t stop me from feeling better when I do kill you though. We have a perfect plan for when the Reagent comes and it will be taken down. The four of us are more than enough to handle that green hulk demon,” having had enough of speaking to the thing you put your headphones in and laid back. With your eyes closed and your music blasted you listened to the beats as you relaxed and kept the rest of your senses opened for any disturbance in the area. 

The rest of the night stayed eerily calm.

*************************************************************************

Friday came again once more. The Reagent would arrive on Sunday. You ditched classes and stayed home to sleep but not before telling the others that you would do so. Bro was nice enough to just not care and let you do your thing. You woke up again once classes ended to a text message. Apparently John asked to hang out with Karkat since he felt like they were neglecting the poor boy and wanted to make sure the boy knew that they weren’t locking him out. Also it would be a bit of a spiritual boost for John before the big battle with the Reagent.

The girls allowed it and you didn’t really mind. John the nice guy would also keep Karkat away from any sort of dangers dealing with their magical shit so whatever. After eating and a farewell to your brother you went to go scour the city with the girls. Rose still needed a grief seed to clean up her soul gem so you tried to find any demon or witch to take care of. During your walk with them you went over the plan again threw around any ideas for extra measures or just in case. It was strange. It had been two hours already and they couldn’t find a single monster to take care of. 

Your cell phone started ringing while Jade and Rose were making casual conversation. Without checking who it was you just answered it.

“Hello Dave Strider extraordinaire spea-”

“ _Dave help holy shit John is fighting something all by himself and it’s really strong. I don’t think he’s going to win. This thing keeps landing hits on him so fucking easily and I think John actually would have been dead by now if it wasn’t just playing around. Dave this thing is over powering him please help oh my god_ ,” his voice was panicked, full of fear, on the verge of tears, whispered, and shaky. You heart began to beat irregularly and you fought to let words escape your throat.

“I need you to calm down long enough to tell me where you are,” your voice uncharacteristically dead serious stopped the girls from talking to see what was going on.

“ _East side of town. That one park by that waterfall looking fountain. Hurry please hurry Dave he’s bleeding a lot Dave._ ”

You cursed to yourself as you began running with the girls swiftly following. You were in the north west of the city and he was pretty far from your position, “I’m on my way with Rose and Jade right now. Are you hiding in a safe place right now?”

“ _My leg got trapped into the ground I think he’s making me wait to play with me later after he’s killed John. Fuck Dave hurry John’s going to die at this rate_ ,” he was definitely crying. You could hear it. He was scared shitless. In the background you could hear John crying out for an attack and then a sickening thump. The phone was pulled away and you heard Karkat scream for John, telling whatever creature he was fighting to stop already.

“I’ll be there soon!” you yelled into the phone before hanging up, “John’s in trouble and Karkat’s with him. I’m guessing it’s a really powerful demon that he can’t handle. I’m going to head there first.”

“We’re right behind you go!” Jade cried out as you changed into your magical outfit. 

You stopped time and ran as fast as you could to the park. It took up a lot of your power keeping time still like this but to prevent John and Karkat from receiving further harm it was the only thing you could do. You arrived in twenty minutes and found the realm easily. It definitely belonged to a demon. Entering and running to the core you found John, beaten, bruised, scratched and barely able to stand, back against a wall with his hammer before him. A nasty wound from his chest dying his shirt in red. In front of him was a black dog humanoid creature with wings and one arm holding a bloody sword ready to strike again. Karkat was seen on the other side of the room, tears running down his face frozen in place straining against the bond keeping him to the ground and shouting out towards John. Your heart ached, fear struck you but it didn’t over power your determination to protect him and John.

Stabbing your sword into the ground and digging out Karkat’s foot you pulled the small boy far to the side in an area you thought would be safe enough. You dragged John to the same place as well before standing a fair distance away from the demon on its left and turning time back again. The demon slashed at the wall to find nothing there. John collapsed by Karkat and the confused now free boy held onto his hurt friend as he spotted you standing there ready to fight the demon. The thing saw you first and snarled as it flew straight towards you without a second thought, blade high in the air.

You barely blocked the first hit. The strength coming from the demon was insane and you swore you could feel your sword cracking under the sheer intense raw power the demon was emanating. If you had to compare brute strength with the others John definitely had more than you did yet he was on the side over there completely beat up. How would you be able to hold on if he was barely able to?

The demon pulled back for another attack. Instead of taking it head on you dodge rolled to the side. What you lacked in power you made up in speed anyways. It sent a barrage of attacks at you never stopping, and each attack seemed to be more powerful than the previous. This thing was angry and you had no idea why. You deflected one of its attacks and somehow managed to knock the blade out of its hand. Jumping up you went for a high attack but something grabbed at your leg and you fell flat onto your face. Before you could recover something wrapped around your neck and pulled you up straight into the air strangling you. A dark vine coming out from the demon’s side was holding you, one from the other side slithered over to where his sword fell. You heard Karkat and John scream out at you. Looking to your right you saw John trying to get up to help you. With gritted teeth you chopped the vine off with your sword and landed on your feet as the demon cried out at you before dashing for its sword. 

“John stay back!” you shouted at your friend. You stood ready for another attack as the demon picked up its sword and flew at you again. You held your ground to prepare for a block but it flew past you. Your eyes widened when you realized it’s aiming for John, “No!”

You stopped time again. You had to be careful. Who knew how dark your soul gem had gotten from that long run earlier. Grabbing a large stone of debris you walked over and threw it into the face of the demon. The rubble flew up and stopped right before its face. After pulling John and Karkat in a new area you stood in a different spot to confront the thing again. Time started again and right on cue the thing flew into the rock face first. It howled in anguish as it turned to you, eyes glowing with anger. You stood ready once more as it lunged towards you. A rifle appeared pointed at the demon at your right, at your left a wand. Both weapons fired and blasted the demon into a wall.

“Oh my god John!” Jade ran to the injured boy as Rose stayed by your side watching where the demon had flown to and waited. 

“Just a scratch,” he said breathlessly and smiled at her.

“What happened!? Why didn’t you call us before taking this thing on?” she looked at him hopelessly, afraid that if she tried to touch him he would break. Karkat sat nearby still crying.

“The realm just over took us suddenly . . . I didn’t even feel it sneaking up on me . . . and it dragged Karkat in it too. I was trying to protect him,” he responded weakly.

“I’m sorry I called so late. I’m so sorry. He said he could handle it but we didn’t realize how strong this monster actually was,” Karkat choked on his words and let out a terrified gasp once the demon burst out from the wall he was blown into. 

It looked in their direction and Jade stood bravely in front of them with her rifle pointed at it. The demon looked at you and Rose who were ready as well before letting out an animalistic cry towards the sky. It stabbed it’s sword into itself, seeing it had no other arm and that was the only place to put it. Raising its one arm straight into the air something red like blood spread over its hand before red tendrils grew above him branching out higher and higher into what appeared to be a tree made out of blood. The demon threw its hand forward and the tendrils flew everywhere, into walls, into the ground, straight at you and Rose. You dodged and watched the mayhem ensue. The attack was tearing the place apart and it kept coming after you like it was alive. A cry from Rose averted your attention for a bit and your sunglasses got knocked off your face. Recomposing yourself and dodging once more you saw Rose trying to stay standing to avoid attacks, her skirt was torn at her leg and it looked as if she just got grazed by something burning because steam was rising from the wound. Looking down at the sunglasses that fell off you, you saw they had melted.

Jade shot at the things but they just absorbed every bullet she fired so she desperately tried to pull Karkat and John away back to the entrance of the realm to get them out of the way. A pile of rubble almost falling on them stopped them in their tracks. Karkat fell down and turned back to watch the demon appearing to laugh. There was no escape for them. You and Rose attempted to get closer for an attack but the blood tendrils kept pushing you back.

Jade and Karkat screaming John’s name at the top of their lungs made you whip your head around. John was standing in front of Karkat and had one of those tendrils pierced right through his heart and through his now shattered soul gem. You could hear your heat skip a beat and ringing loud in our ears as you watched John’s body fall and his magical outfit disappearing. Jade fired as many attacks as she could at the tendrils that continued to come. Karkat wept as he sat over John and shouted his name over and over again. A tendril aimed for Jade, she turned and it grazed the top of her chest breaking off her soul gem and shattering it. The colour in her eyes faded as she fell, her outfit disappeared and she collapsed beside John.

Two screams echoed through the air. Karkat filled with devastation and horror. Rose filled with anguish and anger. You turned back and watched as the red tendrils pulled back and the demon smirked. It pulled out it’s sword as Rose confronted it by herself. Tears falling from her face she screamed as power escaped from her wands. She jumped back and fired an all too powerful blast at it. The demon dodged easily and continued to provoke her.

“Rose stop!” you tried to call out to her. If she used up too much power her gem would go completely dark and then there would be no way back for her. You had to stop her, “Rose! ROSE!”

She sent another powerful blast and it hit that time. The demon flew to the other side of the realm as you approached her and grabbed the sides of her arms.

“STOP. Rose stop right now your soul gem is going to grow dark and you’ll turn into a witch at this rate. DON’T DO THIS.”

She didn’t look at you, a hand was placed over the right side of her face as tears continued to fall and she muttered to herself, “It killed them. It killed John. It killed Jade. I have to kill it. I have to kill it.”

You shook her, “STOP YOU’LL KILL YOURSELF AT THIS RATE.”

A dark glint to your right notified you of the demon approaching. You brought your sword up to your side to block the attack but the force and pressure sent you flying away. The ground shook as Rose shouted. You winced at the pain that enveloped your body after that attack but forced yourself to sit up to see what was going on. A dark aura spread from Rose, her body was completely absorbed in it, her eyes gone white and she clashed with the demon. They flew up, apart then straight at each other, her blasts missing and flying throughout the realm every now and then. If she kept this up she would turn into a witch for sure. You stood up and watched the battle, watching carefully to find an opportunity and you soon found one. Every time they clashed they would fly back before speeding towards each other again. Stopping time right at a point where they clashed you ran towards a higher point where you could jump behind the demon. Right as you jumped you let time flow again when the demon flew backwards. It flew back straight into your sword and you pulled up slicing its top and head in half. The thing fell and you flew into Rose, bowling her down and then flipping your positions so that you could catch her instead of you falling onto her into the ground.

You fell onto your back with arms wrapped around her. You grunted at the pain but ignored it to see how Rose was faring. She appeared to be unhurt but you could feel her shaking and crying against your chest. You sat up and pushed her back a bit to look at her. She gripped onto your shirt.

“Th-they, th-they’re . . . John and J-Jade,” she looked so devastated, so broken. You never saw her like this before.

“Rose calm down. I need you to calm down,” you wanted to let her cry but you knew that if she continued to wallow in grief it would only further feed the darkness spreading in her soul gem. You peeked at the accessory at her neck and found it completely black with no traces of pink in it what so ever. You began to panic, “Rose it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

The shake in your voice didn’t help her. You felt defenseless without your sunglasses. What sort of face were you making at that moment you wondered? Her expression went from anguished to apologetic as she moved her hand up and placed it on your cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her soul gem cracked and a large force blew you away from her. 

The entire realm shattered and fell to pieces revealing a new one. All that was left of the demon you fought before was the grief seed that had fallen somewhere and was now hidden in the new environment. The realm became increasingly darker than the last and eerie whispers echoed through the air as a power engulfed Rose before turning her into something else completely. You heard a cry and turned to see coffins attached to shadows burst through the ground snatching up John, Jade, and Karkat. You ran towards them but the coffins dragged them back into the ground. Behind you a muffled cry of your name is heard and the sounds of someone hitting on a board.

Turning around slowly you saw the witch towering before you. A dark robed figure with no head and a wizard hat floating in the air. In front of it were the three coffins leaning diagonally. The lids of the coffins were transparent so you could see John and Jade lying there peacefully. It was unsettling seeing them like that looking so calm as if sleeping when you knew they weren’t and it sent shivers down your spine. You could feel the colour draining from your face. In the middle was Karkat, panicked and calling out to you while trying to break free from the small encasement. Something stuck in your throat as you tried to process things in your mind. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Where did you go wrong? Things were going so well why now of all times? Right before the Reagent’s arrival. Why?

Rose’s witch form shrieked making the whispers grow louder and more frantic. She raised her handless robed arm forward towards you and you held your sword up ready to block an attack. Instead the ground shook and mutated cat creatures rose from the ground. They hissed and snarled before jumping at you. The attacks snapped you back to reality and you cut them down easily. You had to stop her now or she would take Karkat away and wreak havoc elsewhere. There was no other choice. Rushing forward you headed for the three coffins as you slashed through the cat creatures. You made it to the coffin Karkat was in and he frantically called out to you while banging on the cover.

“I’m getting you out right now,” you raised your sword and a strange sound stopped you. Both of you looked down and found that darkness was slowly creeping over the coffin lids, the same were happening to John and Jade’s coffins. Karkat started hitting at his cover more frantically as you thought of a way to break the thing without hurting him somehow, “Lie back and don’t move!”

He nodded and you prepared to stab through the side to pry the rest open. You got your sword in a bit and used it as a lever to get the cover off. He banged on the cover again shouting your name and pointed behind you. Before you could turn around arms grabbed at you and pulled you back. You took your sword out with you to fight them but the three coffins suddenly flew up and floated above the wizard hat. You watched as Karkat screamed out towards you utterly terrified and still crying. You had to get him out of there before the shadow engulfed the coffin completely. Who knew what would happen if you didn’t. You slashed at the cat creatures and decided on trying to go for a different tactic.

“Rose! ROSE!” you called out to the witch, “Rose this isn’t you! You said you were more careful than me remember! Out of all the people to turn into a demon or witch you were supposed to be the last! Not the first! Rose! Listen to me! Stop this!”

The witch just shrieked back at you as her minions continued coming from the ground attacking you. Dark aura began to escape from the empty wizard robe’s arm and then flew towards you like dark lightning striking into the ground. You dodged and it hit the cat creatures, instead of hurting them like you expected it to do it just appeared to give them more power and grow. One of the ones got hit attacked you but you dodged and it broke the ground. You couldn’t stop them this way, they would just keep coming. You had to stop it from the source.

Making your way through the minions you got closer to the witch again. Without noticing it you realized the whispers began getting louder blocking out all other sounds. And then you heard it. Actual voices. Voices of your friends. Of Rose, Jade and John.

_Hey man what are you doing? Let’s go watch a movie!_

_Cool kid Dave! You should check out this new flower I got!_

_Dave what are you waiting for let’s go._

_Dave._

_Dave!_

“STRIDER!” a voice sharp and clear over powered the other voices. 

You found that you had stopped moving and were just standing there completely dazed for the cat creatures to move in. Once they saw you snap back to reality they quickly jumped but your reflexes were better than that and you sliced and dodged. You looked up and found Karkat had managed to break the coffin lid a bit enough to stick his hand out and create a hole where he could yell out of without being muffled. The shadows had already engulfed over half of the coffin. You had to hurry. Looking around you started running away from the witch towards a high ledge while avoiding the black lightning attacks and onslaught of the minions. You looked over at Karkat as you climbed as fast as you could. He looked at you back eyes watching, waiting, expecting, hoping. 

At the top you saw that it was a bit of a distance but if you jumped from there you could definitely land a critical hit to defeat her. Gripping tight on your sword and stepping back as far as you could you jumped and aimed straight for the middle of the wizard robe. You expected it to wave its arms for an attack to bat you away or something but it didn’t, it just waited with arms spread wide and you hit it right in the middle. You felt your sword sink through a core of some sort past the fabric and the witch shrieked in agony. The minions shrieked in unison before turning into dust and the world cracked around you.

The robe shift and you saw Rose. Your Rose, but faded and transparent coming out from where you stabbed the core. She looked at you with sorrow and hugged you whispering in your ear her apology and farewell before wiping a tear off your face and disappearing. You didn’t know when you began to cry. Above you your name was called and you let go of your sword to catch a falling Karkat who immediately flung his arms around you. He held onto you desperately as the world collapsed all around you.

**************************************************************************

The first thing you registered was the shaking body in your arms. Looking down you found Karkat crying with his face buried into your chest. You let out a shaky breath and look around to find yourself in a dark alley way. In front of you lying side by side were your friends now lifeless and gone forever. In the middle was Rose lying on her side with two grief seeds sitting between her head and hand, your sword stabbed through the ground between her and Jade on her left. Your hold around Karkat tightened as the tears continued to fall down your face. You two probably sat there like that for ten minutes until you wiped your face and slowly pushed Karkat back. He hiccupped and looked up at you with his own tear stained face.

“Is it over?” he asked, voice raspy from screaming. You nodded, “What happened? Why? Why did Rose turn into a witch?”

“When a magical child uses their powers too much their soul gem darkens. If grief over comes them then they turn into a witch or a demon,” you explained with no emotion in your voice. You got up and picked up the two seeds while your outfit and sword faded away. You sat back in front of Karkat again and pulled out your soul gem. The seed with the flower design on it you put into your pocket, the one with the sword pattern you tapped onto your darkened gem and he watched as the grief seed absorbed the darkness making your gem bright again, “We use these seeds dropped by witches and demons to remove the grief but if the seed absorbs too much it could turn into a monster again.”

“And Rose . . .” you watched as he clenched his fists on the ground not daring to turn back to look at the bodies, “Her gem was already dark when she started fighting.”

“And the deaths of John and Jade only furthered her grief,” Karkat flinched when you said the word ‘death’. Putting away your gem and the seed you put your hands on his shoulders, “Tomorrow people will begin evacuating because of tremors and unknown sources of attacks. They’ll call it some sort of terrorism. You have to go with everyone.”

His eyes widened, “D-Don’t tell me you’re going to fight that demon all by yourself. Didn’t Rose say it was like the king of all demons? Are you crazy? You can’t take it on a-alone!”

“He’s right. But perhaps if you had a little more help you could take it down. Karkat has great potential. Far greater than the rest of you. He has the highest chance of taking down the Reagent himself,” Scratch appeared sitting on top of John. Within a flash your sword appeared and you threw it at an angle where it would get pierced through, fly off of John and get stabbed into the wall. Karkat turned around this time but his hands quickly went over his mouth when he saw the others.

“GO AWAY. I TOLD YOU TO NEVER APPEAR IN FRONT OF HIM. I CAN TAKE CARE OF IT ON MY OWN.”

“Dave but if there’s a chance that I cou-” he turned around again.

“NO,” you told him straight and he flinched, “I told you do not listen to a single fucking word that monster says. Just leave.”

“I can’t just leave you like this all alone! Let me-”

You stopped time. You couldn’t take it. You couldn’t listen to another word. You were breaking. Before you had managed to go through those timelines emotionlessly, to keep your cool and just keep going back and calculating everything. Now your friends and family knew something was wrong. You were openly crying and yelling now. You couldn’t take it. Okay new plan. See if you could defeat the Reagent now and then go back again to make sure your friends don’t get involved and take it on by yourself again. Easy stuff. But first to make Karkat leave.

You carried him to the front of his home and left a note in his hands before heading back and releasing your hold on time. In the alley you saw the little devil creature had disappeared. The bodies of your friends continued to lie there lifelessly and you called the police. In the report you told them your friends called you and then suddenly hung up and by the time you found them they were already like that. They believed you and didn’t ask you any further questions. Your tear stained face probably helped but you avoided eye contact because you didn’t have your sunglasses and the colour of your eyes made them a little wary of you. Ambulances came and you watched as they worked but after inspecting your friends they pulled out black body bags and you looked away.

Your brother picked you up at the scene and after getting a rundown of what happened by the cops he just drove you home without any questions. Back at your apartment you sat on the couch with your legs pulled up close and your head resting on your knees. Tomorrow would be your day of rest before the Reagent’s arrival. You had to take it on. Just running now would be pointless especially after all you’ve been through. You felt Bro sit beside you and you looked up at him. You finally realized how exhausted you felt. You didn’t know what face you were making at the moment but it made your brother put an arm around you and pull you into a hug. 

“It’s okay man. Sometimes at times like these it is better to cry. You don’t have to hold it in. It’s okay.”

At that moment you felt your world crumble. You finally broke down and let it all out. Grabbing onto his shirt you hid your face and cried your heart out, sobbing, yelling out in agony, all the works. He rubbed your back as you sobbed and just kept his arms around you protectively. You weren’t sure how long you cried but it made you even more tired than before. He asked if you were hungry and you said you weren’t. He got up to make food anyways and you laid there on the couch staring at the blank TV. 

*****************************************************************************

You woke up to the apartment shaking. You didn’t remember when you fell asleep. You pushed yourself up in panic and looked around to see a few things had fallen from the shelves. The ruckus subsided and your brother came rushing from the hallway.

“The hell was that?” he went to the window and looked outside. 

Car alarms had gone off and some people were in frenzy in the streets. Your eyes wandered to the kitchen and found that Bro had made some breakfast. Looking at the clock you found you had slept in. But it didn’t change the fact that the Reagent was coming . . .

“Doesn’t look like there was a bombing or anything. Is there such thing as a mini earthquake?”

You shrugged at your brother as you get up and headed for the food. You needed energy. The rest of the day was spent eating, watching TV, resting, and planning on how to take down the demon. Ideas for traps and such came to mind. Your brother didn’t bother you, thinking you were quiet and upset over the death of your friends. You were upset yes but it wasn’t like it was the first time it had happened. If you could defeat the Reagent in this timeline then you could go back and do it yourself again but without involving your friends. To not bother telling them. Making sure they were not in the area of any witches or demons when they decide to hang out. Taking care of all those monsters by yourself would be fine since you would get their grief seed after every battle. It would be fine like this. It would be better this way.

Sometime during the day he asked about your sunglasses. You explained to him that you had lost them the other day. He didn’t pry any further.

The tremors begin again in the evening while you were watching TV with Bro. The show swiftly changed to and emergency broadcast giving out an urgent notice of city evacuation that was to take place immediately. Bro cursed under his breath and got up to grab some things. You just sat there looking down. He was about half way finished packing when he noticed you had not moved.

“Are you coming or what? Get your things.”

“I’m not going.”

He put down his things and crouched down in front of you, “Look Dave I know you’re upset but you can’t just-”

“I’m not staying because of that. I’m staying for a different reason. There’s . . . there’s something I need to take care of.”

“Something to take care of?” he looked at you a little confused, “Am I allowed to help?”

“You can’t . . . It’s not something you can help with. But I have to stay back. You should go.”

He put his hand under your chin and made you look at him, “Are you sure?”

You looked down again for a second before looking back and trying to look straight into his eyes, “Yeah. I have to do this. And only I can do it.”

He let out a sigh and got up again to continue packing. You watched the television show that came back on after the emergency broadcast finished. The only sounds in the room were from the tremors or your brother moving items around. 

“There’s probably enough food in the fridge to last you a few days if the power doesn’t go out. Don’t forget to at least eat something. I don’t know what’s going on but watch your back and if this thing really does involve your friends then . . . be careful. When you’re finished doing whatever shit you have to do you should come after us. Don’t just stay here the entire time. If things get too risky you should just leave as well,” he stopped at the door when he finished his little speech. You turned off the TV and got up to say good bye to him. You ended up not knowing what to say. He put his suitcase down and hugged you, “Hey I’m proud of you okay little man. Looks like I just can’t help you with everything after all.”

You just nodded and hesitantly hugged him back. After a pat on the back he let you go and left. You watched him until you couldn’t see him in the hallway anymore and then headed to the window. A few minutes later he left the lobby and looked up at you. With one last thumbs up he hopped into his car and drove off. 

TV served to be the only form of entertainment until the cable died somehow and you switched to video games while ignoring the tremors. In the dark of the night the thing decided to pay you a little visit.

“It’s impossible you know.”

“I can beat it.”

“Not alone. Not in this state.”

“I can.”

“How did you know of his coming? Why do you insist so much against Karkat’s transformation when he could be more powerful than you and the others, if they were still alive, combined?”

“Because he doesn’t need to waste his life on this. I can handle it alone. I should have tried to handle it alone and all the other witches and demons in the first place. I shouldn’t have involved them again.”

“Again,” it paused and sat on top of the TV, “You’re not from this timeline are you?”

You said nothing and watched the big red ‘Game Over’ spread across the screen. 

“Do you realize you did this to him? I see now, why he is one with untold power, why he has the highest potential of being a magical child. You have centered grief around him, by going back in time so many times you have made him a most unfortunate child. His power is so immense that he could become a demon perhaps a million times more powerful than the Reagent himself. You’re the cause of all this.”

You just continued to stare at the screen with an emotionless face. The faceless cat just stayed there for a moment before leaving, “Oh well when you fail you will serve to be a pretty powerful demon as well.”

The rest of the night passed by quickly after dinner and morning greeted you with the roar of the demon. He had arrived and this time you were taking him down. After a quick breakfast you headed out to the center of the city. At the top of your favourite ledge you found it standing almost as tall as one of the sky scrapers. That gigantic large green demon. It had dragged the entire city into its realm and all it was doing was wreaking havoc and destroying everything in sight.

Plans went through your head again as you began to calculate your attacks. To stop time and set up traps and such. This monster was going down no matter what this time. You would take in all the precautions, find all its weak points and-

A figure passed by you on your left, another on your right, above you, from the streets. You stood and watched the people wearing the exact same outfit as you run towards the demon. One of them stopped beside you.

“Alternate timelines. We all decided to just come to this one point to defeat this thing. One of us can’t beat it on our own so we all decided let’s just fuck this guy up all together. We’ve done this stupid shit for too long and we might as well finally fix things in at least one timeline,” you blinked at yourself and he just nodded at you before jumping ahead with the rest. The only difference between you and these others was the fact that you had no sunglasses. You were a little surprised at first but realized that yes it would have been a thing you would have done. Gathering a bunch of yourselves to go attack the monster all at once. A different you thought of it but it was you none the less. 

Would things finally work out this time? Would this plan work? The only way to find out was to go and fight with the rest. The other versions of you all worked together. Creating chain attacks, planning, distracting, making opening for weak spots. They all took careful measures and only attacked when needed too. It was a calculated battle and it appeared to be working. The Reagent roared as it tried to swipe at the small humans. Its mouth laser or whatever couldn’t even hit them because of their perfect coordination. Of course working with yourself would be no problem.

“Dave!”

Until someone else decided to join in.

“Dave!”

“What the hell are you doing here? Go back! Are you an idiot!?” you turned and saw one of you talking to a bushy haired boy who had appeared out of nowhere and had no right being there.

“Why are there more than one of you? What’s going on?” he asked in a panic.

“It doesn’t matter . . .” the other you stopped talking because he was not sure of Karkat’s situation.

“You’re not my Dave. Where did you come from? Where did all of you come from?” the boy backed away from the alternate you and you decided to intervene. You nodded at yourself and the other jumped away.

“What the hell are you doing here!? You were supposed to evacuate with the rest of the citizens!” you shouted at him.

“I couldn’t just leave you here by yourself!” he countered, feeling that he was talking to the right version of you.

“What can you do then!? As you can see I have the situation under control now get out of here!” you turned him around and started pushing him away. A roar and cries of panic and pain made you stop to turn around.

Green humanoid figures had appeared out of nowhere to fight the Daves one on one and the Reagent controlled them to distract them enough to blast them away or crush them. He crushed the green humanoids along with but they slowly morphed back into their original form after being hit. You began to push Karkat away more fervently.

“I told you there was no chance. Even if there are thousands of you against him, you just don’t have enough power,” fucking Scratch. Of course he had to be right there right now.

“I do have enough power! Just shut up! Watch me!” you jumped away and joined the others vaguely catching Karkat calling out to you.

You slashed through the humanoids ignoring their regeneration. If they tried to go after you another Dave just stopped it letting you pass. They knew you were heading straight for the Reagent so they created a path for you. A few followed along and you all reached the Reagent within a minute. All at once you all jumped and attacked. Hitting at any vital spots you thought would slow it down. Falling back every now and then when it tried to attack or when other Daves set off missiles and tanks in the distance to hit it. The demon roared but showed no signs of slowing down or tiring out. It even appeared to be laughing at the futile attempts. You continued on anyways. Attacking at every chance you could. It couldn’t be impenetrable, it had to get hurt or tired at some point, right?

For the first time in your life you had no idea how much time passed as you fought the demon. You watched as alternate versions of you fell and got up again. You watched as many of them died but the rest still tried to fight on. Time was something you were unaware of. It was just gone. You just continued to fight for what felt like an eternity before you realized you were the last one left. The dead bodies lay all around you as the green humanoids began to regenerate and surround you. The demon charged up for another blast attack and you couldn’t help but think ‘was this the end?’

The light was shining bright in front of you and you closed your eyes. It was over. You lost. You couldn’t protect him. You couldn’t protect anyone.

“DAVE!” a cry from your right made you open your eyes again and you saw Karkat run towards you. No, he would die like this. He didn’t stop running and he was moving faster than you thought he was before he suddenly tackled you down making the two of you slide for a bit. He held your head in his arms and shut his eyes as the blast barely missed the two of you and obliterated the ground where you once stood. A ridiculously sized crater now in its place.

The two of you scrambled to get up and the next thing you saw was a large green hand swinging towards the two of you. You turned and faced your back towards the hit and held Karkat tightly as the hand made impact and sent the two of you flying. The two of you spun and flew through trees and a building before you came to a stop. Pain surged through your body as you coughed and faintly noticed the blood running from your mouth. Your world began to get a little fuzzy as the person you were holding slowly pushed himself up with a pained groan. He looked down at you and colour drained from his face as panic settled in.

“Dave? Dave. Don’t you fucking die on me too now. Fuck no Dave keep your eyes open. L-Look at me. Dave Strider I swear if you fucking die on me . . .” you heard a choked sob as you felt tears fall onto your face. With whatever strength you could muster you opened your eyes to the sight of him crying. He did that a lot lately you realised . . . and it was your fault. You were the one making him cry like this.

“Dave please don’t leave me,” he whispered as he lightly rested his head onto your chest and clutched at your shirt. You stared up at the ceiling of the building you fell into as the Reagent’s roar echoed outside.

“S . . . orry,” you managed to let out with a wince. You had never heard yourself so weak, so broken. A small laugh escaped you before you were coughing and you turned to the side as pain seared up and down your body. Karkat sat back and watched in horror as you vomited up blood. 

“SCRATCH! SCRATCH WHERE ARE YOU? I HAVE A WISH! SCRATCH!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. You shook and tried to push yourself up and a hand grasped his shoulder.

“N-No. No. Y-You can’t. Don’t d-do it. K-Karkat s-stop,” you ignored the pain as best as you could to try to get your message across. He just looked at you pitifully as he hugged you.

“You called?” you heard the voice of the devil from behind you. You wanted to kill it again. Over and over again but you had no strength. All you could do was shakily clutch the back of his shirt.

“I have a wish . . .” Karkat held onto you tighter.

“St . . . op,” you managed to whisper. He pulled away from the hug and got off of you before walking towards Scratch. You fought against your broken body and turned to watch. You tried to shout to him, to pull him back, to stop him, but nothing came out, your body refused to move any further, all you could do was watch.

“These demons and witches all used to be magical children didn’t they,” he glared at the creature.

“Yes they were and through their grief they turned into what you have seen,” the casual explanation made you want to throw up again.

“Then my wish is that when a magical child is overcome by grief they don’t turn into a witch or demon. To make sure they don’t ever have to go through that kind of pain,” you stared wide eyed at Karkat’s back. The back you found yourself behind once again, protecting you like the many times before.

“What but that’s impossible,” if the creature could frown that was probably what would be on its face at that moment.

“You said you could grant every wish right!? Then do it!” Karkat screamed at the creature. 

“KARKAT STOP!” you shouted ignoring how your throat and lungs burned.

The devil’s faceless form said nothing more as light began to envelope Karkat.

“NO!”

A soul gem brighter and redder than yours appeared in front of him.

_Please._

The gem turned into a small light and moved towards Karkat. When light no longer surrounded him he turned around to face you. Gleaming armour was adorned upon him and you couldn’t help but think he looked like a Royal Knight as he stood before you. You could feel the boundless amounts of energy emanating from him as he walked towards you and knelt down. His hand rested on your head.

“You’ve fought for a very long time. It’s okay. You’re done. You don’t have to fight anymore Dave. Thank you.”

Agony washed over you. You had failed. Why was he thanking you? His sad smile was the last thing you saw before your world turned black.

**********************************************************************

You opened your eyes and you found yourself calm. It was a strange feeling until you realized you were sort of in the middle of space looking down onto the earth. Freaking out a bit you stepped back and felt that you were on some sort of surface even if you couldn’t see it. You were wearing ordinary clothes and had sunglasses on your face. Okay nothing weird at all about floating in space nope. Then you remembered what had happened recently before desperately looking around. For anything, for anyone.

You made two full circles before finally spotting someone. They stood far away from your position but you ran towards them anyways. As you got closer you found the familiar scruffy haired, short statured, and dark eyed boy. He was just standing there with his hands in his pockets staring down at the planet. Your footsteps made no sounds as you ran and slowed when you got a few feet away. The only indication he found of you nearing was your irregular breath. He looked up slowly at you before giving you a small, weak and tired smile.

“Hey,” was all you could say.

“Hey.”

“So uh. Space pretty big and nice huh,” you attempted conversation staring off farther into the stars.

“Yeah . . .”

“How’d we get here?”

“I brought you here . . . somehow.”

“I see.”

“So,” he continued, “I remember everything now. Well not really remember but I know what um happened in all those other timelines and everything you did.”

“ . . . Okay.”

A silence hung above you. You didn’t know how to really respond to it. Yeah you did all that but what were you expected to say now?

“Why?” he asked with barely a whisper.

“Why what?”

“Why did you go through all that just for me? All that pain, that misery struggling to keep me alive.”

“What? Are you seriously asking me that? After seeing all those timelines and what I’ve been through you’re asking me?” you swallowed, “It’s because I love you.”

You tried to lean in to kiss him but he pushed you away with panic and stepped back with a hand over his mouth, “God. Fuck. God no I’m so sorry . . . Shit I’m so sorry.”

“Wh . . . what are you talking about? Why are you sorry? Of course I would go through that for the one I love. Why are you apologizing?”

“Because you don’t love me and you shouldn’t have gone through all that,” he looked mortified as his body shook with fear.

“What do you mean of course I love you. If I wasn’t then I wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble trying to keep you alive in every timeline that you died.”

“NO YOU DON’T. YOU DON’T LOVE ME AND YOU NEVER HAVE,” he yelled at you when you tried to step towards him and he stepped back.

“WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU RIGHT TO JUDGE AND CLAIM THAT I DON’T!?” agitated you yelled back. Why would he deny it like that? 

He shut his eyes and fell to his knees as tears ran down his face, hands cradling his head, “My first wish . . . from the very first timeline. From the timeline you started to go back in time to try to keep me alive. My wish is why you went through all that. It shouldn’t have. If I didn’t make that dumb ass wish you wouldn’t have had to go through all that.”

“. . . What did you wish for?” you clenched your fists feeling yourself shaking.

“For you to love me,” he answered barely audible.

You blinked slowly processing what he just said, “N-No . . . that’s impossible. I fell in love with you on my own accord. Some dumb wish can’t do that. I . . .”

A hand moved to your head. It couldn’t have been possible.

“ANY AND ALL WISHES COULD BE GRANTED EVEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT,” he sobbed, “THAT’S WHAT I WANTED AND THEN TA DA WISH FUCKING GRANTED. I . . . I didn’t expect it to work actually . . . I just started to do that magical shit and didn’t think it worked because of your attitude towards me the next day. Just normal, cold, cool wannabe, teasing. I saw no difference until I accidentally laughed at one of John’s jokes and saw your face go a little red and I couldn’t believe it. It actually worked.”

Wait. Something didn’t add up here. You recomposed yourself and closed the distance between you two crouching down.

“Hey-”

“I TOLD YOU, YOU DON’T REALLY LOVE ME SO BACK OFF. IT WAS THROUGH THE FUCKING WISH.”

“HEY,” you didn’t mean to shout but it shut him up. You held the side of his arms and looked straight into his eyes, “What did that cat freak say to you when you told him your wish?”

He frowned at you a bit, “He . . . he said it was an easy wish to fulfill.”

“That fucking asshole,” you hugged him and he let out a small sound of surprise and just hugged tighter when he tried to push you away, “You were scammed you know why? You traded your soul for fucking nothing. I was in love with you long before you made a fake contract with that fucker. You only realized it after you made the deal because you started paying a lot closer attention to me to see if the wish was granted but I’ve loved you way before that.”

You felt him clutch at the back of your shirt hesitantly, “Wh-what?”

“I told you I was in love with you before you became a magical being . . . Long before.”

“But . . . You still had to go through all that. You still did all of that. Went through all that pain because of me,” you could feel him shaking against you. Probably crying again.  
“I would go through all of that over and over again just to keep you alive and find a timeline where you wouldn’t have to go through pain.”

“BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR PAIN!?” he pushed away and yelled in your face tears openly falling. His hands shakily went to the sides of your face, “What about you? Why do you have to just think about me? You already did it over and over again. You shouldn’t have. Not for someone like me.”

You put your hands over his, “It’s fine. It’s over now. Please don’t dwell on it any longer.”

“But-”

“People do crazy things when they’re in love.”

“Oh my god did you really just use that quote,” you managed to get a half sob half laugh from him.

“I did because it’s true and that was a pretty good movie okay.”

He looked up at you again, eyes still filled with pain and regret but you also saw some relief. That’s right. This is what you fought for. And it was finally over. You could finally be together without that pain. Without worry. 

You closed your eyes and leaned into him until your lips met. He reciprocated with a sob. You held him tighter and kissed him for the first time as if it was your last. If this didn’t show your feelings you had no idea what would. You couldn’t believe how much you loved this boy. How much you had done for him. It just showed how much you couldn’t live without him.

“It’s over. We can be together now,” you pulled back and held his face in your hands with a smile. It disappeared when you saw him look down sorrowfully.

“I can’t be with you,” he whispered again.

You took in a breath and tried to be patient with him, “What do you mean? It’s over now. We can-”

“I don’t exist on earth anymore,” he closed his eyes. Your heart stopped, “I’ve become an omniscient being that went back to all those magical children when they were overcome with grief and made sure they didn’t turn into a demon or witch. Because of you going back so many times I’ve become something so powerful that I can’t exist in the mortal world anymore.”

“What?” you let out an exasperated laugh, “No . . . no you can’t just. You can’t.”

He looked at you heartbroken and pulled away.

“ARE YOU TELLING ME I DID ALL OF THAT FOR NOTHING!?” he flinched at your scream, “Omniscient that’s like a god right? Can’t you just make yourself exist? This can’t be happening. You have to come back with me.”

“I . . . I don’t know. I,” he looked down and stood up, “Right now I have to make sure you make it back. Staying here too long won’t be good for you.”

“Then let me stay,” you stood up and took his hands in yours, “If that means I can be with you then let me stay. Please.”

He shook his head still looking down, “I’m sorry. I can’t keep you here. You have to go back. Don’t be so hard on yourself please. You’ve done so much you don’t even know. You’ve protected the rest of your friends. They will be there waiting for you. You don’t need me.”

“Yes I do,” you stated firmly and gripped onto his hands when he tried to pull away, “You can’t please. I did this all for you. You can’t just. Karkat please I can’t live without you.”

“No. You’re free now. Without me you will no longer be imprisoned to living that week over and over again. It’s okay,” he managed to slip his hands away somehow and you found yourself unable to move. His hands moved up to your face and he gave you an expression that you had no idea he was ever able to make, “Thank you for loving me. Goodbye Dave.”

He gave you a chaste kiss before turning and walking away. You couldn’t move. Something was holding you back. You wanted to stop him. To grab him and pull him back. Tell him that you would stay with him forever. He was about 20 meters away by the time you were able to move again. You ran after him. Calling his name. Asking him to stop. He just kept walking and didn’t turn around. No matter how much you ran he just appeared to get farther and farther away from you. Suddenly you lost your footing and whatever was holding you up was gone and you fell. You fell and screamed until darkness enveloped you once more.

******************************************************************

You blinked. You were in a subway late at night and in front of you John high fived Rose and Jade. They were in their magical outfits and were alive and well.

“Aw yeah that wraith had nothing on us! We’re the perfect team right Dave?” he walked over to high five you as well but his smile suddenly faded into a look of worry, “Dave?”

Dropping your sword you looked at your hands, unharmed, perfectly fine and healthy unlike how you were before Karkat made the contract yet again. You fell to your knees looking ahead of you and not particularly at anything as you felt the tears stream down your face. Jade immediately went over to your side and hugged you without question. She tried to sooth you, rubbed your back, anything. You just threw your shades onto the ground and buried your face into her shoulder as you cried. You didn’t realise it until later but you mumbled out his name once.

“Karkat?” Jade whispered questioningly.

“Who’s Karkat?” you heard John whisper to Rose. You managed to look up a bit to catch Rose shrugging and then you cried harder than before.

***************************************************************************

No one brought up your crying incident after that. You all acted as if it never happened. You once over heard the others say that they thought it was an after effect of that depression wraith they had encountered before. It was fine. Let them think what they want to think. You acted like you were perfectly fine after that. No more bringing up the name of someone who didn’t exist, it was just the four of you now, no more going off alone to fight wraiths, you always stuck together now no matter what, no extra fifth person to tease, no one to watch for subtle moments of adorableness, no one there to spew profanities at any given moment, no one there to critique movies with, no one there to fall in love with and wonder when to confess.

You missed him. Far too much. You had no one to talk about it with either. You tried to talk to Scratch but apparently he felt no difference. Witches and demons never existed for it. Only the wraiths created from the negative emotions of humans like greed, despair, anger and so on. Sure it listened but Scratch didn’t think it was possible. It didn’t say it didn’t believe you either. Anything could happen with these kinds of powers. You tried your best to live on with your friends. You knew that he brought you back so that you could be with them, so you could know that you did save them even if one of them weren’t there with you. Karkat would probably say things like ‘it’s better this way’ or ‘now you can finally life freely’. It was hard but you tried. Days spent alone you found yourself talking to yourself or trying to talk to him. Out in the open when no one was around. Every day you told him you missed him, wishing he was there with you living out the days in peace aside from hunting down the wraiths and whatever else happened during the day.

For a month the days went by casually. You were glad for the variety now that you were no longer stuck reliving that one week over again and no longer lived in fear of something ridiculously powerful threatening the lives of those important to you and your own. You were free but broken. Slowly you tried to piece yourself back together with the help of your friends and family but a large piece was still missing.

“Hey earth to Dave. Hey man,” John snapped his fingers in front of your face you and snapped out of your thoughts.

“Huh what?”

“Dude you were spacing out. Did you even hear what I said?”

“Nope,” you replied with a smirk.

John gave your arm a playful punch, “I said we’re going to have a new student in our class! It’s like 2 months before the school year ends don’t you think it’s weird to transfer that late?”

“Doesn’t sound that interesting. Don’t bother the new kid now dude. What if it’s something personal? Not nice to pry into other people’s business Egbert,” you mock lectured like a mother.

“I never said I was going to. Doesn’t it just make you wonder why though?”

“It’s fine to be curious but you shouldn’t question them about it,” Rose stated.

“I know that!”

“We should give a big warm welcome to the new kid and let him join our group! It’s pretty hard to make friends this far into the semester so let’s make it easier for him!” Jade suggested.

“Oh man I can’t wait now. I wonder what they’re like.”

The rest agreed as you continued walking towards class. On your way there someone bumped into your shoulder and kept walking. Your friends walked ahead unaware and still chatting amongst themselves as you turned around to give the guy a lesson for not apologizing. You stopped in your tracks and your heart threatened to leap out of your chest one you saw the small frame.

The person stopped walking and you found yourself staring at that familiar scruffy hair and that small yet strong back. He was the one that argued with you. The one you teased. The one that you always found yourself behind. The only one that made you relive life over and over just to keep him alive. The one that protected you. The one that you wanted to protect. The one that loved you. The one you loved. The one you wanted to be with forever. Slowly he turned around and you saw his face. Those dark eyes, those light bags, that slight overbite. He looked at you with a blank expression.

And then he smiled.


	3. Blood, Time, and Tears

_Karkat!_

A voice.

_Karkat!_

Familiar yet unrecognizable.

_Karkat please._

Please what? Who was calling you?

_Don’t do this to me again._

_‘What did I do?’_

_I’m sorry._

Why?

****************************************************************************

Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, head to school. That was the daily weekday morning routine. You sighed at the ordinary day but it was a Friday so the weekend would arrive soon. All you had to do was survive lectures and then you were free. Well after John’s attempts at taking you out somewhere to hang out and succeeding no matter how much you denied. You didn’t really hate hanging out with him. You actually liked how he tried to befriend you when you were the new kid and making you join his little group of friends. You weren’t used to the attention so you always tried to deny him although you didn’t mean it. You were actually thankful for his persistence in making you say yes so you wouldn’t have to be so secluded. You couldn’t really complain. Life at the moment was pretty good. Average. You were just some high schooler living with your temperamental father and got by pretty well.

“Bye Dad going to school!” you shouted at the door.

“I better not get another fucking phone call from your stupid school you hear!?” he shouted back.

You just rolled your eyes and left.

You arrived at school and entered the classroom right at the bell as always. You found John and the other three crowded near your desk chatting away. John greeted you and you just gave him a silent wave before taking a seat in front of his best friend the annoying cool kid wannabe. Him and his stupid shades. You wondered how the boy ever got away with convincing the teachers to let him wear it. You had never seen that douchebag without that idiotic accessory so you had no idea what problem he could have possibly had to require wearing it 24/7. Everything about him just irritated you. The way he talked, the way he teased you, that stupid smirk that appeared to be always plastered on his face whenever you saw him, and the way you could feel him currently staring at the back of your head throughout lectures for some reason. You resisted the urge to turn around and snap at him in the middle of class or hit him just so he would stop. That stupid idiotic attractive asshole.

Instead you decided to give him a piece of your mind at lunch but by the time it came around he had absconded from the room with John. The two boys didn’t even show up in the cafeteria so you ended up eating lunch alone with the two girls.

“So where the hell did those two buttmunchers go?” you asked as you devoured the food before you.

Jade shrugged, “Not sure. They didn’t really say anything to us.”

“Perhaps they are helping out a teacher and forgot to tell us,” Rose made a reasonable assumption.

“Well they did mention about being busy at lunch but didn’t tell us what,” Jade continued. They then left it at that and you listened in on the new conversation they started. Barely paying attention your mind concentrated on what the hell the other two were doing to miss the entire lunch period.

You frowned at Strider once you all returned to class.

“Something on my face?” he raised an eyebrow at you.

“Where were you and John all lunch?” you questioned.

“Oh I forgot to tell you and the girls that we were helping the music teacher move stuff around all lunch. Old lady can’t move pianos by herself you know,” Rose’s guess was spot on but something was off. John refused eye contact. He was lying.

“Didn’t know we had to report everything to you mother. We’re oh so sorry,” he once again had that dumbass smirk on his face. You just glared at the two of them before turning around to pay attention to class.

You felt him staring at the back of your head again throughout the rest of the classes. You had forgotten to ask why. It was strange, was this to bug you or what? You never could guess what the guy was thinking with the way he dodged things and annoyed you for fun. You got irritated too quickly to try to figure out what he was really thinking.

Soon the bell rang and the students filed out. You followed John and Dave and decided to go along with it instead of wasting time having John harping you into a hang out, “So where are we going today?”

“Uh. I’m heading home. Got lots of homework and um I’m busy all weekend so gotta finish it all today,” you looked at John and he avoided eye contact again. He lied again. Why?

“What? But you’re always dragging me places on Fridays. Even when I’m busy,” you then looked at Dave with a scowl, “And what’s your excuse?”

“I’m always a busy man. Not like you’re too keen on hanging out with me alone now are you?” he raised a brow at you again. Irritated you walked ahead of them.

“Fine whatever. See you two assholes on Monday,” with one last glare you turned the corner and slipped into an empty classroom.

You heard the faint sounds of the girls talking to them for a bit before they passed by the room you were in. Unfortunately you were not able to catch a single thing they were saying. Soon you saw the boys pass by chatting about classes and you followed them to see what they were really up to. Keeping a fair distance you followed them to a café that was beside that one arcade John had wanted to take you to for a while. You wondered if those two assholes were going without you. If they didn’t want you to come then they should have been upfront about it instead of beating around the bush. You knew they had been best friends since they were very young. They could have told you they just wanted a best bro hang out or something instead of lying to you. John usually wasn’t a liar though and he didn’t appear to be the type to leave people out of activities so it was odd.

What was odder was the fact that the two headed into the alley instead of going into the café or arcade. With a frown you carefully got closer and waited around the corner to listen in to what they were doing. You waited but heard nothing and after a minute you peeked in to find their bags on the ground leaning against the wall and the two boys nowhere in sight. Where the hell could they have gone? Placing your bag near theirs you carefully walked into the alley. Did they figure out you were following them and were hiding somewhere ready to jump at you? You checked the dumpsters and any other hiding spots you could see but could not find them. Walking further down the alley you began to see the walls distort a bit. You stopped moving but the walls didn’t.

Panic settled in and you turned to run but the world morphed around you. The alley way disappeared and you found yourself in a dark and eerie environment. How you got there you had no idea. Cobwebs were literally everywhere. You looked all around you and it was clear you were not where you were before. Closing your eyes you took a deep breath, it was probably better to find a way out rather than sit and wonder where you were so after calming yourself down you trekked forward to find an exit.

The dancing spiders that had suddenly appeared had startled you at first but after seeing that they were just there and showed no signs of harming you, you ignored the fact that they were really big compared to a normal spider and kept going. As long as they didn’t try to climb you or anything it was fine. It was probably best to stay away from spiders the size of your face. You really hoped they didn’t get bigger. The ‘sky’ in this world was dark, the only source of light were the strange lamps lying around. There was some sort of a path so you followed it hoping it would lead you out of there. You turned the corner and found something large blocking your way. Looking up you found you had jinxed yourself. Standing before you was a spider about the size of a classroom looking at you with its many eyes. You swore its strange fang teeth things were grinning at you and next thing you knew your world went dark.

To be fair you think anyone would have fainted if they came face to face with a monster of that size. If you had arachnophobia you may have had a heart attack instead.

*****************************************************************************

_. . . Karkat!_

You stirred. You swore you heard your name. You tried to move but something restricted your arms and legs. Forcing your eyes open you find yourself looking straight down a few hundred feet above the ground. Below you a group of large assed spiders like the one you met before were fighting against two people. Looking at yourself you found that you were bound in a spider’s web. To your left you found the one you met earlier sitting in the middle of the web you were stuck to.

“John baseball shot!” you heard a familiar voice shout. Looking back down you watch as the one in the blue and green outfit somehow blow away the spiders to create room. The one in the red and white outfit hopped onto his weapon before getting spun around and shot up towards you. As the figure got closer you saw the trademark shades and couldn’t believe it. What were Dave and John doing here and what the hell were they wearing?

The web bounced a bit and looking to your left you saw the spider that had captured you was moving towards you. You tried to wriggle free but the web was too strong so all you could do was watch as it got closer and closer. It looked like Dave was aiming towards you as well to get you out of there but it was hard to tell who would reach you first. At the last second Dave changed his target to the Spider and sliced through it along with the web. Your bonds fell loose once the main web broke and you soon found yourself falling towards the ground. Below you the other spiders shrieked in agony before dissipating into dust.

You watched as Dave was somehow able to turn around and lunge towards you before wrapping his arms around you. You couldn’t even find any energy to scream as you clutched onto his shirt in fear. At that height and speed the two of you could die. But of course he had to just surprise you further with how softly he landed on the ground. He carefully helped you stand and let you go but you couldn’t stop yourself from clinging onto him. Around you the strange dark realm disappeared and you found yourselves in the alley way again. The strange outfits on John and Dave suddenly disappeared and they were back in their normal clothes before John walked towards you.

“What the fuck just happened?” you asked a little quietly as you hesitantly let go of Dave’s shirt and stood on your own.

“No the bigger question here is what the fuck are you doing here!?” Dave yelled at you. You flinched and backed away from him, startled by the sudden uncharacteristic outburst.

“You two were being all suspicious all fucking day so I followed you okay! I thought you two were being assholes and keeping me out of things and I didn’t expect whatever the fuck just happened!” you shouted back in defense, “What even was all that!? What the hell is with your outfits!?”

“Hey man just calm down first,” John placed a hand on your shoulder.

You whipped around and smacked John’s hands away, “No I want a fucking explanation!”

“Well um,” John grabbed his left arm with his right hand and looked down before swinging his hand in the air a bit to try to think of an answer, “We’re sort of-”

“No, we don’t need to explain a single fucking thing,” Dave cut John off, anger seeping through his voice. You could even see his forehead slightly creasing in frustration. Wow he was mad, “Ever heard of mind your own business Karkat? You don’t need to know because it’s none of your business. See because you decided to snoop around you got caught and got in the way. From now on whenever we tell you we’re busy you fuck off alright. Now go home and think about what you’ve done.”

He turned and picked up his bag that was left by the entrance of the alley and walked away without another word.

“Whoa hey Dave! Wait up! Um sorry Karkat but you really should go home,” John picked up something small on the ground before grabbing his bag and running after him, “Dave hey! Dude hold up!”

You watched as John disappeared around the corner before slowly falling to your knees and trying to comprehend what had just happened. You had followed them, disappeared into a dark place, got kidnapped by a giant spider, got saved by them while they were in super hero outfits, Dave got mad at you and then they just left you in the alley, all by yourself, when the sun was about to set. Quickly standing up and grabbing your bag you decided it was better to dwell on it at home rather than staying out in the open to danger. Who knew what you would run into if you continued to stay out there.

You ran all the way home without a second glance at anything. The world was so different now, so frightening, so confusing. Nothing made sense anymore. Those you had thought were your friends were actually beings of great power. Were Rose and Jade like them too? How long had they had these powers? How long had they been fighting against these things? How long were they keeping all of this from you? How did they attain those powers? Where did those monsters come from? Why were they tasked in taking care of them? Dave looked as though he did not want to tell you for some reason. John looked like he was about to but was stopped and would probably avoid telling you with the way Dave insisted on not telling you. You had to talk to them about it. This confusion would be unsettling inside of you forever until you knew what was going on. Jade and Rose were reasonable people so hopefully they would tell you if you asked.

Arriving at your home you found that your father had not returned from work so after making sure all the windows were closed and the door was locked you hid in your room. Unable to concentrate on your homework for an hour, you stared at the chat client seeing Jade online and wondered if it was an acceptable time to ask her at the moment. Your mouse hovered over her chat handle but you didn’t click. After a minute of just staring at it you just groaned and flopped onto your bed.

You almost fell out of it when your father slammed the door open soon after, “Karkat! I called you five bloody times! Dinner is ready!”

“I’m not hungry . . .”

“Not hungry? I even came home an hour early to make you your favourite!”

You sighed and rolled to your side to face away from your father, “I’ll eat in a bit. I’m just not hungry now.”

“Fine then,” you easily imagined him rolling his eyes at you before leaving and closing the door.

You decided to take a nap until a notification went off at your computer. You should have shut it down. With a groan you got up and checked the message. Well turns out Jade had decided to talk to you instead of the other way around.

gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]

GG: hey karkat!  
CG: HEY.  
GG: so . . .  
CG: SO?  
GG: john told me what happened today  
CG: OKAY.  
GG: tomorrow we’re going to meet up at john’s house to talk about it and i want to tell you everything  
CG: DAVE DOESN’T WANT ME TO KNOW.  
GG: i know john told me he yelled at you which was weird because dave just doesn’t yell :S  
GG: i guess he’s just worried about you  
CG: STRIDER IS WORRIED ABOUT ME?  
GG: of course! you’re our friend after all!  
CG: I REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THOUGH.  
GG: yes i want to tell you too which is why you should come over to john’s place early before dave arrives  
GG: i’ll convince him to let you know okay?  
CG: ALRIGHT.  
GG: sorry  
GG: you probably have a lot of questions right now but we’ll make sure to tell you everything tomorrow  
CG: FINE. SO I GUESS THIS MEANS YOU AND ROSE REALLY ARE INVOVLED IN THIS TOO HUH.  
GG: yeah  
CG: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING THIS FROM ME?  
GG: well before you became the new kid at school  
CG: I SEE.  
GG: okay everything else tomorrow! get some sleep and stay safe okay?  
GG: have a nice night karkat  
CG: YOU TOO I GUESS.

gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]

You sat back with a sigh. She promised to tell you the next day so there was no problem. It was Jade Harley after all. No matter how much Dave put up a front he could never crack down on Jade. You believed she could get him to comply but you were still confused with why he had to yell at you like that. You would ask tomorrow.

*************************************************************************

“I said to come early!”

“I did.”

“Not early enough Dave is almost here! Okay so just hide in John’s closet and don’t come out or say anything before we try to convince him,” Jade then shoved you into the closet before you could reply and shut the door behind you. You grimaced getting squished up against John’s clothes before carefully maneuvering around until you were comfortable and were able to see through the small openings on the door. Dave came in about a few seconds later. If Jade had not shoved you in he may have seen you and tried to kick you out before they started talking.

Mr. Egbert generously left a plate of cookies and drinks for the four of them right after Dave had entered and after stating that he’d just be down stairs if they needed him he left. Rose and Jade sat on John’s bed, John sat on his computer chair backwards and Dave sat on the corner of his computer desk.

“So . . . I heard Karkat followed you guys and sort of found out,” Jade broke the silence that had somehow started since Mr. Egbert had exited the room, “Dave did you really yell at him? That’s not like you.”

He looked down.

“John tells us you have something you need to say. Is it part of the reason why you’ve been acting odd and edgy?” Rose questioned.

“Yeah . . . but first. I don’t think we should explain to Karkat what’s going on. It’s just too dangerous,” he stated with determination. You frowned at that.

“Okay but I don’t think you had to yell at him yesterday,” John looked over to him.

“I just. Yes fine that was uncalled for but he shouldn’t have followed us. I didn’t think he was that kind of stupidly curious guy. What if we hadn’t noticed him in the web and the thing ate him before we killed it?”

“But we did save him.”

“Dave what’s bothering you,” Rose slightly frowned.

He sighed and crossed his arms, “Okay do you know about that great demon called Reagent English.”

“That powerful one that has a tendency to level cities? Then yes . . . Don’t tell me . . .”

“Yeah, our city’s next on his list. At the end of the week too. It’s going to be insane. More witches and demons will be coming throughout the week. It’s going to be tough and it’s going to be crazy unsafe. We’re the only ones here that can take care of it and if we don’t there goes the city.”

“What’s wrong with asking for help then? Why do you have to keep me out of it?” you couldn’t take it anymore and exited the closet. If such a big powerful thing was coming then wouldn’t it be smarter to ask for help rather than taking it on all by themselves?

He looked at you surprised as he stood up before glaring at John, “What the fuck is he doing here?”

He shook his head at him and looked towards the girls.

“I think we should tell him,” Jade spoke up, “He should know what’s going on because he’s our friend but we won’t let him join in with us. We have to let him know to at least understand why he shouldn’t help us. I know you’re concerned about what happened to me but I would’ve hated to not have known too. I wasn’t careful when I followed you guys around, but we’ll make sure Karkat knows the dangers so he doesn’t do anything stupid like I did.”

She gave Dave a pleading look. You watched as he just sat back down again with a grumble and looked away. A little ticked off at his actions you somewhat shouted again, “Yeah so please just explain to me what the hell is going on!”

“Calm down and come sit with us,” Rose moved over and patted the spot between her and Jade. You blinked at her before walking over reluctantly. Any false moved could get you kicked out so you had to listen to them for now.

“Well to start off we have super powers!”

“John don’t give him the silly explanation!” Jade rolled her eyes at him.

“What it’s true.”

“To be more specific we are magical children.”

“The fuck does that mean,” you frowned. Suddenly a flash of light enveloped Jade and Rose before strange outfits replaced the casual ones they were just wearing. They just smiled at you before smiling at each other.

“Magical children have special powers and weapons that can fight against demons and witches,” Rose explained as she held her wands in front of her. Jade held up her intimidating rifle as well.

“Did you guys always have these powers and hid them from me all this time?” you asked a little hurt. After all those times they kept saying they were your friends too.

“We’ve only had them for about a year though. Jade half a year,” John rested his chin on the back of his chair.

“We gained these powers through wishes and a contract with a certain creature,” Rose leaned back and twirled one of her wands, “For any wish you desire you become a magical child and fight against witches and demons in return.”

“What kind of wish would you make to have to do stupid dangerous stuff like that?”

“A year ago my mother along with John’s father and Dave’s older brother had gone together to go get some supplies they had forgotten when we went on a camping trip. We waved at them as the car was leaving the campsite onto the highway and . . .” she paused and placed her wand down.

“An idiotic speeding truck crushed their small sedan,” Dave picked up where she left off, “A faceless cat creature came up to us a little bit too soon after. We made a contract with it to bring our guardians back.”

You looked up mouth slightly hanging open at the sudden shock. You felt like you were going to say something but nothing came out. You promptly shut your mouth and waited. But that didn’t explain Jade so you gave her a glance and she returned your look with a small sad smile.

“I soon found out about their powers since they kept sneaking away just by themselves. The only reason why I wasn’t with them during that camping trip was because I was out of the country with my grandpa that summer,” she then took a long breath in and out, “I liked joining them and watching as they fought against the demons and witches. I was like wow it’s so cool to be friends with heroes secretly protecting the city!”

“But it was dangerous,” John hid half his face behind his arms and looked away.

“ . . . A demon distracted them and attacked me. On the verge of death Scratch appeared and I wished for my life. Oh Scratch is the faceless cat creature by the way.”

“You . . . died?” he questioned hesitantly and unbelievingly.

“If Scratch didn’t grant my wish then I probably would have.”

“Not like we’re really alive either . . .” you heard Dave mumble.

“What does that mean?” you furrowed your eyebrows at him completely confused.

“Okay who wants to do the demonstration?”

“I’ll do it,” John took something out of his pocket and held it out. It was some sort of small decorated sparkly blue egg sitting in a fancy hold of some sort. Rose waved at John and he tossed the blue egg like object towards her. She caught it, changed back to her normal outfit and left the room.

“What was that?” you looked at John’s closed door where Rose had just left.

Jade changed back to her normal clothes as well and pulled out a small object just like Johns and placed it in your hands. The only difference was this one was green, “When we become a magical child each of us get this. It’s called a soul gem. Without this we can’t change into our cool hero outfits and fight against the demons. When we transform it turns into an accessory somewhere on our outfits. But the catch is . . .”

She paused and looked over to John. You looked over as well and watched as his eyes grew dim and his body slumped out of his chair. Dave quickly caught the lifeless body as your eyes widened. He shifted John so that he was easy to carry and pulled out his cell to text someone.

“Soul gem means our souls are placed in those crystals. If the gem is too far away from us then the body no longer functions. If the gem breaks then we die . . .”  
You looked down at the crystal. You were holding Jade’s soul in the palm of your hands. That fact alone made you panic and quickly give her soul gem back before looking at John with worry, “Is he . . .”

“Technically yes he is dead. It’s a soulless body right now and if the gem stays away from the body for too long it will become useless for him to use it. Rose is coming back right now though so don’t worry about it he will be fine,” Dave explained, “So yeah if some freaky faceless white cat appears don’t listen to a word it says no matter how much it sugar coats it. Whatever you wish for you’ll be making a contract with the devil and trading your soul for it. So don’t do it.”

You gripped the bed sheets and looked down trying to process what you had just learned. Okay so due to some unfortunate events your friends have traded their soul for the life of their guardians except for Jade who traded her soul for her own life. Now they all have magical powers and have to fight against creatures because of a contract with some sort of faceless cat creature named Scratch. It was a lot to take in. Dave and Jade stayed silent to let you think until Rose returned and placed John’s soul gem onto his chest. You watched intently as life returned to his eyes and he slowly sat up making his gem fall.

“Oh oops,” he picked it up and quickly pocketed it before sitting on his computer chair again, “So uh was that all we needed to explain?”

“Let’s see. I think all that’s left is to make sure Karkat understands and doesn’t come with us when we take on witches and demons,” Jade tapped her chin.

“It’s okay. I get it now . . . sorry for being annoying and prying about it,” you looked away again.

“It’s okay Karkat. I understand how it is to hate not knowing what’s going on and your friends keeping things from you,” Jade placed a sympathetic hand on yours, “We’re telling you now so we can protect you. We don’t want you to question why we suddenly go places without you and then you following and getting hurt like with what happened yesterday.”

“Sorry . . .”

“No need to be sorry Karkat. We’re sorry you suddenly had to learn about us like this. It’s quite frightening I know,” Rose stated.

You moved forward making Jade let go of your hand. Putting your elbows on your knees and your head in your hands you summarized what they just told you, “You guys have been risking your lives for the past year and I only figure this out now. If I ever wanted to help you I’d have to trade my soul to a devil creature. Yeah sounds great. Holy shit . . .”

“As long as you understand and don’t try to act heroic by trying to help us then things should be alright. Please don’t think of us too differently. We just want to stay friends with you if that’s alright.”

“Yeah that’s fine but how the hell can I just casually keep going when I know you’re risking your lives out there like this.”

“Our lives are already gone Karkat you don’t have to worry about that. Just stay out of it trouble and you’ll be fine. Right now we have to plan about how we’re going to take on the Reagent. You’re free to stay and listen if you want as long as you don’t decide to jump in and help,” Dave reiterated.

“No I think I’m going to go home now . . .” you looked up a bit to see John biting his bottom lip.

“You could help us plan?” he attempted to still include you in a way somehow.

“No I’ll just get in the way. . . Good luck I guess. See you guys Monday . . .” you got up and without another word just left the room. You heard Jade sigh before you closed the door.  
“Hey!” Dave called out to you when you were halfway down the stairs you looked up, “Sorry . . . for yelling at you yesterday.”

“Sorry for yelling back at you. I understand now. You were just looking out for me.”

“I’m serious though if you do see that cat thing don’t listen to a word it says no matter how much it sugar coats this magical deal. It’s a devil in disguise. Be careful.”

You looked up at him, at his shades, where you were hoping you were looking at his eyes. You felt him look back along with a sense of concern. Something you had never felt from him before. He probably yelled at you yesterday because he was freaking out about how you almost got hurt and he wasn’t sure what to do with the fact that you knew, “You be careful too. All of you.”

You clenched you fists and looked down. You wanted to tell them that you wanted to help, that they could rely on you if they needed to but you couldn’t. There was nothing you could do. The only way you could help was if you made a devil contract that they talked about but what would you even wish for? In the state you were now you would just get in everyone’s way. With a small defeated sigh you turn and head down the stairs. At the door you look back up and see Dave waiting there and watching you. You couldn’t think of anything else to say to him so you just left.

All you could do now was wait for them to defeat that great and powerful demon that they were talking about before. But then what? Even if they did defeat that thing that didn’t mean they wouldn’t stop being those weird magical children things. It didn’t mean they had to stop fighting other monsters either. After they beat that thing it was obvious that they’d just go back to fighting other witches and demons like how they did before. You couldn’t believe it took you this long to figure it out after hanging out with them since you were the new kid. Why did they even bother being friends with you if they wanted to keep such a thing away from you? It would have been better if they didn’t even bother getting to know you so that they wouldn’t have to worry about you getting in the way of their work.

But what if they didn’t beat that ‘Reagent’ as they called it? What if they got hurt or worse? What would happen to them or the city if they didn’t? They were the protectors right? But why did they have to take care of those witches and demons? Who took care of them before? Why them? Where did they even come from? What about that faceless cat creature? Did they question that thing? What would happen to them from now on? Do they still grow? Are they immortal unless killed? After a whole session of explanations everything still didn’t make sense. You wouldn’t have believed any of it if you had not witnessed their transformations and how John and Dave defeated that spider witch the other day. It was insane yet you had to believe it. Playing ignorant would help no one. It wasn’t like you had to do anything so it was best not to dwell on it.

Back at your home you found a note on the fridge telling you that your father would be gone all day and mostly all night with his group so you could do whatever you wanted as long as it didn’t involve destroying the house. You would have gone to hang out with your friends like any normal weekend but of course they were busy with more pressing matters. All days games it was then. A good distraction from the mess of what you could barely comprehend that day.

It was hard trying to find things to do to distract you. Whatever you did it kept on reminding you of what had happened the other day and about your friends. Fighting games brought back the image of Dave and John battling. Fantasy games brought up the magical outfits they wore. The little spider crawling across your desk brought up that thing that kidnapped you and you quickly squished it with a piece of paper before tossing it away. You became frustrated. You couldn’t do anything but sit around and wait with the full knowledge that your friends were risking their lives every day to protect the city, their families and their friends. Strangely enough your frustration was what made the day go by quickly and soon it was night fall. Your father would not return until late into the night so you decided to head to bed early. You stretched in your chair and let out a yawn before swiveling around to find something sitting in the middle of the floor of your room. It looked like some sort of small animal, it was white, it was weird and foreign so you cried out and threw your dictionary at it.

The thing swiftly dodged and hopped onto your bed, “I apologize for startling you. I mean you no harm. There is no need for violence.”

You blinked at the thing that spoke to you. It had no mouth but a voice was clearly coming from it. It appeared to be some sort of white cat with green markings here and there with strange long flaps that appeared to be its ears. It would have looked cute as well if it weren’t for the fact that it had no facial features what so ever. Just white blank space where a face was supposed to be. The faceless cat creature. Your bewildered look turned into a glare. So this was the devilish creatures that had made your friends seal their souls into little gems.

“There is no need for hostility either. I am just here to speak with you.”

“Well I don’t want to talk to you so get out of my room you thing or whatever.”

“That’s quite rude to call me a thing. My name is Scratch.”

“I don’t care what your name is. In my eyes you’re a thing because you’re not like any creature on this planet and you have no fucking face now get out before I start throwing things at you again,” you would not let it start speaking. They warned you about him to not speak to him so that was exactly what you were going to do.

“So you will not listen to a word I say? Not even if I can provide information on how you can help your friends? The least you could do is to hear what I have to say to be polite. I have come all this way after all.”

“You came into my room without any warning. Here that’s called trespassing, invasion, or breaking and entering. Take your pick. Now get the fuck out of my house. There’s nothing I want to hear from you. I heard enough from the others today.”

“So you will just continue living your life this way knowing full well how much danger your friends are in? An extra hand is always helpful in dealing with witches and demons. Do you like living peacefully knowing full well that your friends could die any day?”

“There’s nothing else I can do . . .” you picked up your textbook and held it up behind your head ready to throw it, “THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO SO SHUT UP AND GET OUT!”

“But you can join them. You can go and fight with them. I’d be granting you a wish along the way so there shouldn’t be any problem. You gain all the benefits.”

“Benefit of what? I’d be sticking my soul into a tiny crystal.”

“It’s to protect your soul. As long as that crystal is intact then you could theoretically live forever. It’s better than those meager human bodies you possess.”

“That’s . . . That’s just insane!”

“Why? You’d become more powerful. You’re greatest wish would be granted. You would be able to help your friends. It would be most beneficial to you. I do not understand what the problem is here.”

“That’s just. That’s not human. Being like that, doing that and having your life put into something. That’s not natural!”

“But isn’t it human nature to wish to be stronger? To have power? To protect others? Is that not what you want? I can grant you any wish and you would have the power to fight. Why are you so against it?”

“It’s not- I just-”

“You would be so powerful beyond belief. You could protect them. They wouldn’t have to worry about you. Is it not better this way? I can grant you any wish you desire as well. Fame, fortune, power, anything at all.”

“NO JUST STOP! SHUT UP! STOP TALKING! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” with a scream you chucked the textbook at the thing. It dodged once more before hopping over to your window.

“Perhaps I should let you think about it for a while. You have obviously taken in too much information for the day and you require some time to process it all. I will come again another day.”

“DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE! I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING SEE YOU EVER AGAIN!” you swore you heard it let out some sort of breath of amusement before turning and leaving. If it could smirk that would have probably what have been on its face. That’s what you sensed from it anyways.

You panted trying to regain your breath from screaming at the no faced creature. Staring at the ground you felt your head begin to pound. It was all just too much. After all that information what were you expected to do? No you already knew. It was insane. It wasn’t worth it. It was what your friends were trying to prevent so you would listen. Dave, the one who appeared to barely care, was the one who insisted on it the most so it was probably a big deal for him to show so much emotion. You did as he said and did not heed the words of the creature. If it ever tried to come around again then you would just stop it somehow before it started to speak again. That was it, a simple and easy solution. There was no need to dwell on it further.

After shaking your head you decided it was best to leave it at that so you headed to bed without another thought. It took a lot of energy just gaining all of that information. Processing could wait another day.

********************************************************************************

“Karkat! Hey wait up! Slow down!”

You stopped and turned around before Jade collided into you causing the two of you to fall over. You yelped in surprise before groaning in slight pain.

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! I didn’t expect you to just stop!” she quickly got off of you and helped you up, “I said slow down not stop.”

“Yeah well it seemed easier to just wait for you. Didn’t know you were coming after me like a speeding bullet,” you grimaced.

“Sorry,” she gave you an apologetic smile, “How are you?”

You brushed yourself off and avoided eye contact, “Aside from the fact that I was knocked to the ground, I’m okay I guess.”

She crossed her arms and moved so that she was up close to your face and looking straight at you, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

With a frown you stepped back, “Never better. Aren’t you busy? You shouldn’t be wasting your time talking to me. You should go before the others start looking for you.”

“I just wanted to see how you were doing . . .”

“Well you see now right? I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll stay out of your way. See you later I guess,” and with that you left without giving her another look. She didn’t appear to know what else to say to you so she didn’t call out to you again.

You were glad because you may have just yelled at her before running away. There was no point in you trying to talk to them now when they were busy preparing for a big upcoming battle. Since you couldn’t do anything it was best to stay out of their way.

It had been a few days since they revealed to you what they were. You had been thinking about what they said and what Scratch had as well. Sure you wanted to help them but it would have been too risky. Even with some sort of power would you even be able to help? What if you just got in the way or made things worse? You were no expert in fighting let alone fighting monsters. What could you even wish for? What kind of wish would be worth trading your soul for? You thought about the wishes of the others. They were all for a life of either theirs or another’s. You didn’t think any wish you could make could equal something of that high value. Fame, fortune? It wasn’t worth it. Not for your soul. Your life that was perfectly healthy at the moment. Anything you could think of was meaningless so in the end it was best to leave the others to take care of it.

John and Jade tried to talk to you from time to time but you quickly brushed them off and went home right away. You noticed Dave and Rose looked at you from time to time but they never said anything. The rest of the days were unfortunately spent worrying about them. The frightening day was nearing.

****************************************************************************

“Karkat! Hey let’s go hang out.”

You frowned at John who had suddenly approached you as soon as classes ended on Friday, “Aren’t you busy? Shouldn’t you be scouting town like usual or whatever?”

“It’s okay the girls and Dave have it covered! Dave was on night duty last night which was why he was absent. He was just sleeping at home but he’ll be scouting with the girls today so let’s hang out!”

You looked at the empty desk that was behind yours. So that was where he was, “Are you sure? Shouldn’t you go with them?”

“Hey they’re strong and if they do need any help then they can just call me. They’ll be fine. Come on give me like a moral boost before our big upcoming battle please?” he pleaded.

You looked over to the girls. They just smiled at you and Jade patted your back, “We’re stronger than we look Karkat we’ll be fine! Just go have fun.”

“We have taken care of most of the demons and witches during the past week so today may just be a casual day for us as well. There is no need to worry,” Rose reassured. You were going to roll your eyes at her but then saw the bandages wrapped around her neck. Something must have happened when they were going around yesterday because you definitely did not see that in class before they had left. You would have questioned it but you had a feeling she would have dodge the question.

“Fine I guess . . .” you begrudgingly accepted.

“Sweet! Okay just call me if you need anything okay see ya!” John waved to the girls as he dragged you outside. The two just giggled and waved back.

“Christ Egbert I can walk on my own you know!” though you feigned annoyance you were actually glad he wanted to spend time with you like this. He was ever the optimist as always and hated leaving anyone out of anything. This was probably an attempt to make up for the fact that you couldn’t’ do anything for them and how they had kept that secret from you all this time, “So where are we going?”

He let go of you and walked ahead with a little skip in his step, “Let’s head to the park on the east side of town! They have a sweet swing set there.”

“What are you 10?”

“Hey swing sets are always fun no matter what age you are!”

“Yeah yeah whatever. Lead the way,” you rolled your eyes but smiled anyways. You couldn’t remember the last time you went on swings.

On the way there John started a casual conversation about school, games, people, anything that didn’t have to do with the magical bullshit they were dealing with. It was comforting just like how things used to be before you had discovered their secret. But of course the topic still hung on your mind no matter how much John tried to distract you from it the facts were still there.

“Hey is it alright if I ask about your wish?” you tentatively asked when you reached the park.

John went silent and sat on a swing but then gave you a small smile afterwards, “Sure it’s no problem.”

You sat in the swing beside him, “Did your dad or any of the other guardians remember about the car accident?”

“No. They were confused about the smashed car and us crying and hugging them but we explained it as the car brake not working and it just happened to roll into the road when a truck zoomed by. Took us a while to get home but we did enjoy our camping trip,” John began to swing, “Dave is right. You should be careful and not listen to Scratch no matter what. He likes to appear at the most convenient of desperate times like he did with Jade and the rest of us. It’s strange how he appeared in front of us in those sort of situations. We brought Jade’s fate upon her though . . . we don’t want to do the same with you.”

“But then why is it trying to get me to comply to making a contract with it? I don’t have a significant wish right now. I just happened to discover you guys that’s all.”

“Maybe it’s because you found out. Like it would be more convenient if you became one rather than waiting around and there is the possibility that you could tell other people.”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“I know I’m just saying maybe that’s what Scratch is worrying about. I don’t know. He also said something about you possibly being a very powerful magical child I think.”

“He did say that . . .” you looked down and pushed yourself lightly making you swing a tiny bit. John swung far and high and you watched as something seemed to push him making him able to go over the top bar and swinging down hard again with childish laughter. When the boy swung up again he jumped off instead of swinging over the bar again.

“There’s no need for you to be a magical kid. We can take care of it and we’ll protect you. After we’re done with this phony Reagent everything will go back to the way it was where we relaxed and hung out and our only worries would be about school,” John gave you a big wide grin. You couldn’t help but smile back.

The smiles disappeared as John suddenly turned around and then faced you again with a concerned look. He quickly ran up to you and then pulled you off the swing before picking up his bag. You picked up your own and then he started to run while pulling you along.

“What’s wrong?”

“A demon’s presence is nearby. I have to get you out of here. For some reason it’s getting closer and closer and really fast,” he bit his lip as he ran towards a building and then into an alley way. He then stopped with his back against the wall. You were pushed up against the wall beside him and his arm was over your front. The two of you then waited with baited breath. After a minute or two of your heartbeat pounding in your ears, John let out a breath and chuckled, “I think we lost it.”

You let out a breath of relief as well. The two of you relaxed and you turned to face John about to ask him if it would be best to wait a little longer before heading out but something shifted behind him and morphed before sucking him in. You cried out to him and outstretched your hand where he had disappeared only to get sucked in yourself. With a cry you fell through and soon found yourself in a dark realm.

“Crap the thing snuck up on us,” John grimaced as he got up and looked around. Broken buildings and debris were scattered about. Fire, ruin, destruction. That was all that place screamed. You got up and dusted yourself off. It was okay. You were with John and he could take care of the demon, no big deal. Beside you John had already switched into his magical outfit and held his hammer over his shoulder.

“Do witches and demons usually come to you guys?”

“. . . Not really,” John’s words concerned you. He noticed and quickly added another explanation, “But with the Reagent’s arrival they’re all been stranger than normal so this could be the case as well.”

“Right . . .”

“Okay stay close to me. Never know what’s going to jump out at us. I’ll defeat this thing quickly and get you out of here,” John began walking and you followed.

“Should we call the others?”

“Nah I should be able to handle it. I understand looks are deceiving but I am pretty strong if I do say so myself.”

“Alright I get it,” you smiled at John’s carefree attitude. It helped in unnerving situations, “Let’s hurry and get out of here this place is too creepy.”

John nodded and the two of you carefully trekked towards the center of the realm. The only sounds were your footsteps and the crackle of fire from the ruins. It was too dreary like a war zone. No something worse. A massacre, homicide, genocide. One of those or all of the above. Danger was all you could sense from that place. You would have asked if there was another way out or if they could leave but John made no action to try those methods. You knew he would have left if he could with you because you weren’t a magical child so your safety was his top priority. It appeared like the only way to leave a witch’s or demon’s realm was to defeat it. Everything would be alright. You would hide and John would defeat the demon and that was that.

You walked for a couple of minutes in caution until you found that the rubble and broken buildings began increasing around you. Up ahead there was one tall building. It was broken as well but it was the tallest they had seen compared to all the ones they had passed previously. At the base of the building stood something. A black figure with wings, it turned around and snarled revealing its dog like head, it had only one arm, and a sword stuck through its torso. John held his hammer in front of him as you took a step back and shifted behind him. That thing was emanating a very powerful killing intent making you want to turn and run but that would have been a lot more dangerous.

“Hey when I go to attack it you go find a place to hide okay. You have to make sure it has its full attention on me before you go,” John whispered to you.

With a gulp you replied, “Yeah okay.”

“Alright good.”

“Be careful.”

“Thanks I will.”

The dog demon pulled the sword out from its torso and pointed it towards the two of you with a snarl. John suddenly lunged forward and you felt wind blow you back. You quickly took the chance to run to the side and duck behind a pile of debris. The first clash echoed through the air behind you. John let out a battle cry as the demon growled and the clashes continued. The battle went on. Figuring you were in a pretty safe spot you peeked up over the pile you were hiding behind to watch. Carefully looking over you found John and the demon jumping back and forth with great speed trying to land hits on each other. They looked pretty even. You began to wonder if John really could take him on.  
Looking up was a mistake. The demon glanced at you and grinned. He bared his razor sharp canine teeth at John before shoving the boy away and then flying towards you.

“Karkat no!” John cried out as he flew after the monster.

The dark creature flew over the rubble and landed in front of you. Horror struck and kept you in place. Your mind told you to run but you were paralyzed with fear. The demon was definitely grinning as it held its blade up high. You just stared back at it. Was this where you were going to die? Would your life just end like this?

“NO!” John’s cried before he shoved you out of the way.

The demon struck. You fell to the ground but quickly looked up to see the monster’s blade tear through John’s front and creating a long cut across his chest. The sword barely missed his soul gem. It held its blade up again as John sunk to his knees. You immediately got up and tackled the beast away. John recovered quickly and retaliated with an attack but it was easily blocked. The demon kicked him in the stomach and he flew far off to the side.

“JOHN!” you cried as you tried to run towards the boy. Something grabbed your right ankle and you fell forward. Shaking away the pain you looked down at your foot and found that it had somehow become completely immersed into the ground thus trapping you. A dark chuckle was heard behind you before the demon moved to your side and walked past you towards John. It was going to kill him and it was making you watch. Tears fell as you called out to your friend, “No. NO! STOP! JOHN GET UP! GET UP AND RUN! GET OUT OF HERE. LEAVE ME.”

The boy clad in blue and green pushed himself up weakly. Once he was standing he let out a cry and attacked the monster once more. The demon easily dodged and made a shallow cut at the boy’s leg. John cried out in pain but attacked again. Over and over again John attacks were dodged and more wounds appeared over his body. Bruises and cuts. Blood fell. At this rate he really would die. You tried to pull against your trap but you couldn’t budge. All you could do was watch in horror as your friend slowly died before you. Was this how they felt when they watched Jade die?

Jade. Jade and the others. That was right you had to call them, you had to let them know so they could come before this thing killed John. Fumbling through your pocket you quickly pulled out your phone and dialed up the first name you recognized which happened to be Dave’s number. The dial tone and ringer echoed in your ear. It sounded so slow to you as you continued to watch John attempt to fight back. Your heart probably beat ten times in between each ring and then finally there was a click.

“ _Hello Dave Strider extraordinaire spea-_ ”

“Dave help holy shit John is fighting something all by himself and it’s really strong. I don’t think he’s going to win. This thing keeps landing hits on him so fucking easily and I think John actually would have been dead by now if it wasn’t just playing around. Dave this thing is over powering him please help oh my god,” you blurt out everything as fast as you could hoping he could understand. You feared that if you stopped to speak carefully then you would have choked on your words.

“ _I need you to calm down long enough to tell me where you are_ ,” his voice on the other end sounded dead but calm.

“East side of town. That one park by that waterfall looking fountain. Hurry please hurry Dave he’s bleeding a lot Dave.”

“ _I’m on my way with Rose and Jade right now. Are you hiding in a safe place right now?_ ”

“My leg got trapped into the ground I think he’s making me wait to play with me later after he’s killed John. Fuck Dave hurry John’s going to die at this rate,” you told him desperately. In front of you John attempted to attack the demon again. He ran at the creature with his hammer but it just smirked before blocking the attack and then hitting him hard in the stomach with the end of its sword. John flew across the area and slammed into a wall of some sort. John stood there leaning against the wall and held his hammer up in front of him again. If that wall wasn’t there John probably wouldn’t have been able to stand. The demon walked towards him ignoring your cries, “STOP IT! GET AWAY FROM HIM. JOHN!”

“ _I’ll be there soon!_ ” a voice shouted from your phone.

The demon raised its blade once it was in front of the boy you screamed some more but it was fruitless. John kept his hammer in front of him hoping he could block somehow and all you could do was watch.

You weren’t sure how it happened but one second you were trapped and then the next you were free in a completely different spot than you were in before and John collapsed beside you. Pushing confusion aside you looked over John who was breathing heavily and looked like he was in immense pain. What were you supposed to do? What could you do? You practically just got in the way. John could have taken care of the monster if you weren’t there to distract him. He was trying to protect you which was why he took that big hit and it weakened him making him an easier target for the beast.

The sounds of swords clashing caught your attention and you looked up to find Dave struggling to hold the attack from the demon. He did say he would come soon but you didn’t know that it would have been that fast. You should have called earlier, right from when you two had entered the realm. John wouldn’t have been that badly wounded if you did. You continued to watch as Dave dodged and parried the attacks with great speed. The demon appeared to be extremely angry. Probably from the loss of the toy he was playing with earlier. You looked back down at John who was trying to sit up.

“What are you doing!? Stop just stop and rest. The others will be here soon you don’t have to fight any more.”

“I-It’s too s-strong. Where are th-the girls?”

“They’re on their way.”

“H-he needs help n-now. DAVE!” John suddenly shouted out. You looked back at the battle and found that Dave was caught in the demon’s grasp. A vine coming from its side was holding up the blonde by his neck. You cried out towards him too as John attempted to get up. Dave looked like he was in pain as he sliced at the vine holding him. He landed on his feet and the demon cried out before dashing for its sword that had been knocked away earlier.

“John stay back!” he shouted towards the two of you as he stood ready for another attack. The demon picked up its sword and flew at him again. He held his ground to prepare for a block but it flew past him and flew towards John instead.

“No!” Dave called out. You held onto John and pulled him back. You blinked. Suddenly you were in a new position again. Far ahead of you the demon howled in pain. It had somehow flown into a large rock in midair. It must have been Dave’s power.

The demon snarled and flew towards the boy again. Beside him two figures appeared and aimed their weapons at the creature and fired blasts at it point blank. As it flew across the area into that tall building Jade ran over to you while Rose stood in a ready position with Dave.

“Oh my god John!” she knelt down beside John’s broken body.

“Just a scratch,” he said breathlessly and smiled at her.

“What happened!? Why didn’t you call us before taking this thing on?” she looked at him hopelessly, afraid that if she tried to touch him he would break.

“The realm just over took us suddenly . . . I didn’t even feel it sneaking up on me . . . and it dragged Karkat in it too. I was trying to protect him,” he responded weakly.

“I’m sorry I called so late. I’m so sorry. He said he could handle it but we didn’t realize how strong this monster actually was,” you almost choked on your own words. Within seconds the demon burst out from where it fell and stood tall. Its growls echoed throughout the realm. It looked in your direction and Jade stood up in front of you with her rifle ready.

The demon then looked at Dave and Rose who were ready as well before it let out an animalistic cry towards the sky. It stabbed it’s sword into itself, seeing it had no other arm and that was the only place to put it. Raising its one arm into the air something red like blood spread over its hand before red tendrils grew above him branching out higher and higher into what appeared to be a tree made out of blood. The demon threw its hand forward and the tendrils flew everywhere, into walls, into the ground, straight at Dave and Rose, but it spread far across the realm. They dodged and watched the mayhem ensue. The attack was tearing the place apart and it kept coming after everyone like it was alive.  
Jade shot at the things but they just absorbed every bullet she fired so she desperately tried to pull you and John away back to the entrance of the realm to get the two of you out of the way. A pile of rubble almost falling on the three of you stopped you in your tracks. You were holding on to John and fell back with him when the rubble almost hit you. You turned back to watch the demon appearing to laugh. There was no escape. Dave and Rose attempted to get closer for an attack but the blood tendrils kept pushing them back.

The red branches snaked all around you. John could barely move on his own so you had to pull him away every time the thing tried to strike. Jade still shot at it even though it appeared to be useless. Nothing affected it. All you could do was try to dodge the incoming attacks. One of the tendrils got too close so you shoved John to the side and fell back with the thing barely brushing past you. You shifted to your knees ready to get up again but suddenly another one was aimed right at you. The point then lurched forward. You stared in horror as someone stood in front of you and takes the hit. The tendril stabbed straight through John’s chest breaking his soul gem as well. You screamed.

You faintly recall Jade screaming John’s name. The tendril disappeared as John’s body unceremoniously fell to the ground with his magical outfit disappearing. Strangely enough no blood spilled from the large gaping hole in his body. It was just there and it made you want to puke. Jade cried out and fired as many attacks as she could at the tendrils that continued to come. You scooted a little closer to John and said his name over and over in slight hopes that it wasn’t real. He couldn’t be dead. He would get up the hole wouldn’t be there and he would be fine. The sound of a shattering crystal made you look up. A branch had sped past Jade’s chest and pieces of her green gem floated in the air. She stared at you with wide eyes full of fear, regret and pain. The bright green colour faded, her hat and rifle disappeared, her clothes reverted back to normal and the body fell beside the other.

Your throat hurt. You were screaming again. Hands on your head, tears falling, heart aching. You didn’t notice the red tendrils retreating. You just continued to call out their names over and over again. You had just watched two of your best friends die in front of you. How could this happen? If this demon was that powerful then how strong would this Reagent be? A loud cry of anguish tore through the realm this time. It wasn’t from the demon or you this time so you looked up and found Rose surrounded by some sort of dark energy facing the demon alone. Dave was calling out to her, telling her to stop but she wouldn’t listen. He was far off to the side in a different position from before. He winced in pain as he tried to get up still shouting at Rose. His shades were gone. Were they knocked off in the battle?

A second later he disappeared. A howl of pain roared through the realm and you looked up to see Dave had pierced his sword through the demon’s neck and then promptly split its head in half. The energy that was surrounding Rose dispersed once the demon was defeated and she began to fall. Dave fell towards her and caught her before hitting the ground. The demon faded away revealing a small little metal ornament before hitting the ground and bouncing away. You looked back at the other two and Dave wass speaking to Rose. Without his shades you were able to see his expression clearly. He was panicked, afraid, desperate. Rose the girl you never thought you would see cry ever was sitting there openly crying and looked devastated. You barely caught her lips moving and saying sorry to him before hearing the faint sound of something cracking. The ground shook, the realm cracked and dark power overflowed from her. Dave was blasted away as the realm changed into a much darker one.

The ground under you shook and shifted. Something shot out and picked up John and Jade. A lid sealed their encasement and you saw that they were coffins. Shouting out to them you ran to one of them seeing if you could open it but another coffin came out of the ground and trapped you as well. A transparent lid blocked your escape before it dragged you back underground. Darkness surrounded you for a few seconds. When you were brought back to the surface you found yourself facing Dave who had your back to you. Hitting at the lid desperately you called out to him as he slowly turned around.

Without those shades you saw how vulnerable he was. His face showed horror and fear. You also saw why he constantly wore those sunglasses and why his soul gem was bright red.

Above you something gave out a high pitched shriek. Looking up you saw you were right in front of a witch that had no face or hands. It looked like an empty robe with a floating wizard hat over it. You were so confused and afraid. Where did this witch come from? Where was Rose? Did this thing overtake the demon’s realm when it was defeated? Would Dave be able to defeat it on his own? It moved its arm towards Dave who took a ready stance but no form of attack came from it. Instead mutated cat creatures rose from the ground, an army was soon formed and they immediately attack the boy. Dave appeared to have snapped out of a trance when the creatures jumped at him. Determination was written on his face once he began slashing at the monsters and heading towards you. It wasn’t too long before he made it to your encasement.

“I’m getting you out right now,” he raised his sword and stopped when you both heard a strange sound. Both of you looked down and found that darkness was slowly creeping over the coffin lids, the same were happening to John’s and Jade’s coffins. You hit the cover frantically indicating that he should hurry up since you weren’t sure if he could hear you. Who knew what would happen if the darkness covered you completely. His mind worked quickly as he thought of an idea, “Lie back and don’t move!”

You nodded and obeyed before he stabbed his blade into the side of the coffin and attempted to pry the cover off. The cat mutants began to close in behind Dave so you shouted out and hit the lid trying to warn him. They grabbed at him before he could turn around and pulled him away from you. He pulled his sword out to attack them but as he did your coffin along with the others suddenly shot up into the air and stopped above the witch. You cried out in horror as the darkness continued to creep over your coffin. There was no way Dave could reach you from there. It looked as if the only way to free you was to defeat the witch. Looking down at the lone fighter you saw that he was getting tired. At this rate both of you would die as well.

And then he shouted out Rose’s name. At the witch. Was this witch actually Rose? What was going on? How could this have happened? Yet at the same time it made sense. Witches and demons had to come from somewhere. No matter how much Dave yelled at it there was no positive response. It just screamed at him again as something dark began to escape the robe’s sleeve and black lighting struck the ground aiming at Dave. He dodged as it hit one of the cat creatures. You thought it would hurt it but of course it was the witch’s realm. It made it grow stronger instead and it tried to attack Dave but missed and cracked the ground. No matter how many he cut down more would just come. The situation appeared to be completely hopeless.

You watched as Dave fought through the creatures trying to get closer again but then his movements slowed and then he just suddenly stopped. The cats circled around him as he just stared straight ahead as if under a spell. You kicked and hit at your cover and pushed at it hoping that it would help a little. The area where Dave had broken from earlier only budged a little but it looked like it was enough room for your voice to clearly escape. You stuck your arm through for good measure and tried to open it a little more. The cats were too close so it was now or never.

“STRIDER!” you screamed at the top of your lungs. He visibly snapped back to reality and jumped just in time to avoid the oncoming attacks. He looked up at you and you tried to let it show on your face that you wanted out of there right away. The darkness had already crept up over half of the lid and the cover refused to move any further. It was as if the darkness was sealing it. You were shocked when he began to run away. He wasn’t thinking of leaving you was he? You couldn’t blame him though. Fighting two monsters right after another seemed to be too much for even Dave Strider. A part of you was relieved when you saw him climbing something and looking at you. You watched him and waited. That was all you could do now.

At the top of whatever he was climbing he stepped back and gripped his sword. Would he make it from that distance? It was worth a shot anyways. He threw away all hesitation as he ran and jumped, aiming straight for the middle of the robed witch. The witch didn’t even fight back, it just kept its arms open wide as Dave’s blade sunk into its core. It wallowed in agony as the minions around it screamed before turning into dust. You looked around as the world shook and broke. Looking down at Dave you saw a faint figure of Rose hugging him. Suddenly the coffin around you disappeared and you found yourself falling. You called out Dave’s name, he looked up at you with tears in his eyes before letting go of his sword and holding his arms out. You immediately flung your arms around him and held onto him desperately as the realm collapsed around you.

*******************************************************************************

At some point the world stopped shaking and you were no longer falling. The only sounds were the peaceful chirps from birds here and there but otherwise it was quiet. You were still in Dave’s arms. They were warm around you and you felt safe. You felt him shift and hold on to you a little closer. He was slightly shaking and you felt the tears fall onto your head. You didn’t mind. You were crying as well and you stayed that way for about ten minutes before he moved, probably to wipe his face, and then slowly separated the hug.

“Is it over?” you asked feeling the strain in your voice from your earlier shouting. He nodded, “What happened? Why? Why did Rose turn into a witch?”

“When a magical child uses their powers too much their soul gem darkens. If grief over comes them then they turn into a witch or a demon,” he explained with no emotion in his voice. He got up and walked behind you to pick something up. Soon he sat back in front of you and pulled out his soul gem. Two strange small metal ornaments sat in his hands. The one with the flower design on it he put into his pocket, the one with the sword pattern he tapped onto his darkened gem and you watched as the little ornament absorbed the darkness making your gem bright again, “We use these seeds dropped by witches and demons to remove the grief but if the seed absorbs too much it could turn into a monster again.”

“And Rose . . . Her gem was already dark when she started fighting,” he explained as you clenched your fists and dared not to turn around. Something in his voice made it sound like he had seen something like this before.

“And the deaths of John and Jade only furthered her grief,” you flinched when he said the word ‘death’. Dave put the seed and gem into his pocket before placing his hands onto your shoulders and looking straight into your eyes, “Tomorrow people will begin evacuating because of tremors and unknown sources of attacks. They’ll call it some sort of terrorism. You have to go with everyone.”

Your eyes widened, “D-Don’t tell me you’re going to fight that demon all by yourself. Didn’t Rose say it was like the king of all demons? Are you crazy? You can’t take it on a-alone!”

“He’s right. But perhaps if you had a little more help you could take it down. Karkat has great potential. Far greater than the rest of you. He has the highest chance of taking down the Reagent himself,” a familiar and unsettling calm voice suggested behind you. Dave’s movements were too fast for you to catch but you saw the burning anger in his eyes as you heard a sound of a sword stabbing through something behind you. Turning around was a mistake as you saw the sword pierced threw Scratch’s head and the dead bodies of your friends just lying there. You felt sick and your hands quickly went over your mouth.

“GO AWAY. I TOLD YOU TO NEVER APPEAR IN FRONT OF HIM. I CAN TAKE CARE OF IT ON MY OWN,” he shouted with ferocity. This was insane. Dave was barely able to defeat the demon and that witch so how could he take on that great ultimate demon on his own?

You turned back to face him, “Dave but if there’s a chance that I cou-”

“NO,” you learned you didn’t like him yelling like this and you flinched again. This wasn’t like him, “I told you do not listen to a single fucking word that monster says. Just leave.”

“I can’t just leave you like this all alone! Let me-”

The last you saw on his face was anger, frustration and tears. The next second you found yourself sitting at the front door of your home. You looked around frantically wondering what had happened and hoped to see if Dave was nearby but he wasn’t. His power was too convenient for him. You couldn’t believe it. He left you just like that without even bothering to try to hear a single word of what you wanted to say. You tightened your fist and found something was in your hand. A note.

_Tomorrow an evacuation notice will be announced. Please go. This is the last thing I will ask of you. I’ll be fine. When I’m done I’ll go look for you okay? There’s no reason for you to be in danger any more. Please stay safe._

It was from Dave of course who else could it have been from.

You crunched up the paper in your hands and the tears openly fell. You didn’t know what to do anymore. You wanted to help but you had no power to do anything. All you did was get in the way and watched as your friends died. Dave was right to send you away. If you intervened you may have just led him straight to his death as well.

“What the hell are you doing here sitting at the front step kid?” you looked up still crying . He probably just came home from work. He was set back by your tears and knelt down in front of you, “Hey what happened?”

You couldn’t even produce any words and just hiccupped before throwing your arms around him and continued bawling your eyes out. Seeing your genuine distress he didn’t ask any questions right there and brought you into the house. The man wasn’t quite sure what to do in the situation but he let you cry until you passed out and when you woke a nice warm meal was waiting for you. Your father didn’t ask you anything even though you expected him to.

“One of your friends’ guardians contacted me. He told me what happened,” your father spoke once you sat down across from him, “I’m sorry about what happened to those three.”

You could only assume that it was Dave’s brother who had contacted him. Dave probably gave some sort of sensible story to cover their actual deaths. You weren’t sure what it was but it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change the fact that they were dead. You felt sorry for their families, the guardians that they had traded their souls for their new lives. What would become of them?

“Just take it easy and rest alright? You don’t have to go to school for a while.”

“Okay . . .”

“You know you can talk to me right? Like about any kind of troubles. I’ll listen or whatever.”

You blinked at your father. He was the type of man that told you that you were old enough to get by on your own and that none of your problems should be his problem as well. You had to fend for yourself and not bother him. That was the rule for you to stay under that roof until you were finished school. You had no idea he had any plan on acting like an actual father at any point.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” it was sort of awkward having a family meal like that with him but in a way it was nice. The two of you ate quietly.

The silence lasted through nightfall.

*******************************************************************************

“Jesus fucking Christ what the hell was that?” was the first thing you heard once you woke up aside from the nice mini earthquake that shook you out of bed. You left your room and found your father looking outside for the source of the quake, “Fucking crazy assed kids.”

That’s what he assumed but you knew what it really was. He was coming. That great demon Reagent English. He was on his way. The fated day was tomorrow after all. And the only one to confront him would be Dave Strider. The lone idiot. Why did he have to go and take on the thing by himself? The rest were gone so the only logical thing would be to run away with everyone else right? They couldn’t have been the only magical children in the world so someone else could take care of it later. Some other stronger group perhaps. Why did Dave have to make it like it was his burden?

The rest of the day was spent quietly aside from a tremor every now and then. Since it was a Saturday your father had the day off and cursed at every shake. He tried to go out at one point to see what it was but couldn’t find the source. By evening the television and the radios all gave out emergency broadcasts about the city evacuation that was to be effective immediately. Just like Dave had predicted. But how did he know? He seemed to know a lot for some reason.

You thought it over in your head as you packed for the trip out of there. Behind you were the murmurs of curse words and phrases wondering ‘what the hell was going on’ and ‘why the hell weren’t they giving an actual reason for the evacuation’. Nothing was really said between you and your dad as you got into the car and he started driving away. The only thing on your mind was Dave. Why was he so concerned about you? How did he know everything? Why did you care so much about it?

Well he was your friend right? You were friends which was why he didn’t want what happened to Jade to happen to you. That’s why he frantically tried to protect you and John during that demon attack. Just friends. Your mind wandered over to how Dave’s movements were so quick. How in a blink of an eye he could have gotten to you or moved you away or bringing you home and disappearing. It was as I he somehow had all the time in the world.  
Time.

That was it! That was his power! He could stop time and do everything or move anything while time was stopped. That explained his far too sudden movements. But if he could stop time could he go back in time as well? That would explain how he would know the exact date of the Reagent’s arrival and the evacuation notice. He knew. He went back to try to fix things but what had happened the first time? He appeared to be so desperate to make sure you weren’t a magical child so something may have happened in a different time which made him go back. But why didn’t he go back already? It was already completely messed up so he should go back and try again right? Going alone like that would have been like a suicide mission.

Maybe that was the point.

“STOP!”

“Stop what!? We’re stuck in traffic right outside the city I can barely move!”

“Dad I’m going to go back,” you opened the door.

He grabbed your arm, “Back for what? An evacuation means there’s something dangerous in the city so you can’t just go back.”

“I have to go back. I . . . I forgot something.”

“Is it that important that you have to run back into danger in the middle of the night?”

You turned back to look at him, “Yes.”

His hold on you loosened as he gave you a confused look. You answered pretty quickly with conviction so that was probably what had startled him.

“You’ll come back as soon as you take care of whatever you’ve forgotten?”

“Yes.”

He let go, “Okay. Fine. Be careful.”

The breath was knocked out of him when you suddenly hugged him. It took him a while but he did eventually hug back, “Thanks Dad. I’ll come looking for you and I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

“You’ve grown pretty fast. Probably should have looked over you better though.”

“You did fine,” you let go and leave the car. When you close the door you give your father one last wave and run back into the city. You were done with just sitting around and waiting.

It took a few hours before you got back to the city. Walking took too long but it would have been too dangerous to ask your father to drive you back. You didn’t want to lose him as well. Dawn was breaking by the time you found yourself in a couple of familiar streets. It looked and felt so empty as you carefully walked through. You had to find Dave. You had to talk him out of it and have him run away with you. That was what seemed to be best at the moment. After running away you could talk to him and ask him properly if he really did go back in time. A roar echoed through the grey skies. Something felt odd about the city as you walked further. It wasn’t because it was empty, it was something else, familiar and foreboding. It was as if you were inside a demon’s realm.

You froze. Did this thing just drag the entire city into its realm? You broke out into a sprint. You had to find Dave soon. You ran towards the place you believed you heard the roar from. He would most likely be found there trying to fight the demon on his own. Five minutes barely passed before you heard many other footsteps from around you. More witches and demons? Quickly ducking behind a building you cautiously peeked out to see how many there were.

Instead of seeing monsters pass by you saw Dave run by. And then another Dave. One jumped from street lamp to street lamp. One jumped over you to the next building. Many others ran down the street. Where did all of these guys come from? How could more than one Dave be in all in one place like that? After they passed by you cautiously followed. They went pretty fast so there was no risk in being caught by them. They led you to the center of the city and there towering over even the tallest buildings stood a large muscular green demon. Like the hulk didn’t have anything on this guy. He was insanely huge and was pretty much going on a rampage destroying everything in sight. You also saw all the Daves attacking it. How would you be able to find yours in this mess?

“Dave!” you decided to just run out towards them and call out until you found the right one, “Dave!”

“What the hell are you doing here? Go back! Are you an idiot!?” one of them confronted you.

“Why are there more than one of you? What’s going on?” you asked him.

“It doesn’t matter . . .” he stopped talking as if in a loss of what to say. This was definitely not your Dave.

“You’re not my Dave. Where did you come from? Where did all of you come from?” you backed away a bit and another Dave jumped in. He nodded at the other one and the fake jumped away before this one without sunglasses faced you.

“What the hell are you doing here!? You were supposed to evacuate with the rest of the citizens!” he shouted at you.

“I couldn’t just leave you here by yourself!” you countered. This one appeared to know more than the other one did and judging from the look in his eyes you felt that this was the right one. He looked like he was absolutely furious with you while the other one was just confused and slightly upset.

“What can you do then!? As you can see I have the situation under control now get out of here!” he turned you around and tried to push you in the direction from where you came from. A roar and cries of panic and pain made him stop to turn around.

Green humanoid figures had appeared out of nowhere to fight the Daves one on one and the Reagent controlled them to distract them enough to blast them away or crush them. He crushed the green humanoids along with but they slowly morphed back into their original form after being hit. Your Dave began to push you away more fervently.

“I told you there was no chance. Even if there are thousands of you against him, you just don’t have enough power,” that eerily calm voice spoke from beside you. He appeared out of nowhere as usual.

“I do have enough power! Just shut up! Watch me!” Dave just yelled at Scratch before jumping away to join battle with the others.

“Dave no wait!” you called out to him but he didn’t listen and just kept going.

“He will die at this rate. All of them will. Reagent English is just too powerful,” Scratch continued to speak.

“Why? Why would he go through all of this? This can’t be the first time he’s gone back. How many times has he tried to alter this timeline?”

“So you knew,” Scratch watches the slaughter with you, “Who knows how many times it has been. Something great must be motivating him though so why else would he go back numerous times?”

“But at this rate he won’t be able to go back again. Not if he dies.”

“It appears so. Either that or he’ll turn into a powerful demon by the time he fails and if he still lives. It’s fine either way.”  
  
“Fine!? How the hell is this fine!?”  
  
“The emotions brought out by you human children are just a power source for my planet after all. The more power they exert and the more powerful demon they become means more energy for my people.”  
  
Your eyes widened at the shocking revelation. This was the truth behind the magical children. The truth behind how witches and demons were created. It was all this freak’s fault. Not Dave’s or John’s Or Jade’s or Rose’s. Just this god damn alien.  
  
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” you mumbled under your breath.  
  
“Hm?” the cat creature tilted its head at you.  
  
“I’M NOT GOING TO LET DAVE DIE OR TURN INTO A DEMON. AS LONG AS I’M LIVING I’LL NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN!”  
  
It sounded like the thing let out a small laugh, “You can’t do anything in your current weak state.”  
  
“Watch me,” and with that you ran into the fray.  
  
The dead bodies of the other Daves were scattered all over the area as you tried to get closer to your Dave. The one that was from your timeline. You were thankful he was easy to differentiate from the others because of his lack of glasses so you knew he was still alive even if your heart seemed to beat faster from the sight of the other dead Daves that had lost their sunglasses. By the time you got close enough you saw that he was the last one standing. But that was all he was doing. Just standing there and staring as the demon charged up a beam attack from its mouth before closing his eyes as if accepting defeat. Did he decide that everything was pointless and that it was over? You wouldn’t let that happen.  
  
“DAVE!” you cried out to him as you ran. His eyes opened once more and looked at you with fear. Before he could say anything you tackled him to the side hard and the two of you slide out of the range of fire. You held his head in your arms and shut your eyes as the blast barely missed the two of you and obliterated the ground where he once stood. A ridiculously sized crater now in its place.  
  
The two of you scrambled to get up to run. Before you could even take a step Dave quickly held onto you and turned you around. The first thing in your line of vision was a large green hand swinging towards you. The hand made impact as Dave tightened his hold on you before the hit sent you two flying. The two of you spun and flew through trees and a building before you came to a stop. Slight pain spread across your back once you finally stopped moving and hit the ground. With a groan you slowly pushed yourself. The scene before you made your heart rate go up again. Dave was pale and badly wounded. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth and his eyes appeared to be phasing out. Panic settled in.  
  
“Dave? Dave. Don’t you fucking die on me too now. Fuck no Dave keep your eyes open. L-Look at me. Dave Strider I swear if you fucking die on me . . .” you choked on a sob as you felt tears run down your face. His eyes lids kept flickering. You could see that he barely had any energy left and it was taking all his strength to just stay conscious.  
  
“Dave please don’t leave me,” you whispered as you rested your head onto his chest and clutched at his shirt. You couldn’t bear losing the last of your friends. Not like this when they had all fought so far just to try to take this thing down. The Reagent roared in the distance once more.  
  
“S . . . orry,” he barely managed to let out. You had never heard or seen him so weak, so broken. A small laugh escaped him before he was coughing and lurched to the side to vomit up blood. All you could do was watch in horror.  
  
“SCRATCH! SCRATCH WHERE ARE YOU? I HAVE A WISH! SCRATCH!” you shouted at the top of your lungs.  
  
Dave grasped your shoulder and tried to push himself up, “N-No. No. Y-You can’t. Don’t d-do it. K-Karkat s-stop.”  
  
His body shook and it was obvious that he was in pain but he ignored all of that to try to convince you to not do what you both knew you were about to do. With a pitiful look on your face you hugged him.  
  
“You called?” the creature appeared in front of you patiently waiting. You felt Dave shakily clutch onto the back of your shirt.  
  
“I have a wish . . .” you tightened your hold on him.  
  
“St . . . op,” he whispers to you. Carefully you let go of him before getting up and walking towards the devil creature. From behind you could hear Dave forcing himself to shift and turn to watch.  
  
“These demons and witches all used to be magical children didn’t they,” you glared at it.  
  
“Yes they were and through their grief they turned into what you have seen.”  
  
“Then my wish is that when a magical child is overcome by grief they don’t turn into a witch or demon. To make sure they don’t ever have to go through that kind of pain,” you declared.  
  
“What but that’s impossible,” if the creature could frown that was probably what would be on its face at that moment.  
  
“You said you could grant every wish right!? Then do it!” you screamed at the creature. Any wish it said. This was a wish and it had no choice but to grant it.  
  
“KARKAT STOP!” you could practically hear the strain in Dave’s voice as the boy cried out at you.  
  
The devil’s faceless form said nothing more as light began to envelope you.  
  
“NO!”  
  
A bright red soul gem appeared before you. It turned into a small light and moved towards you until blending in with the rest of the light. Soon the light dissipated and showed your ordinary outfit was replaced with a knight’s armour. This was it. The contract was complete. Your wish was fulfilled and you had become a magical child. You turned to face Dave who was watching you with wide eyes. Tears were falling down his face and his expression showed regret. You knew then that his main goal was to prevent this all along but it was the only way. After walking over to him you knelt down and rested a hand on his head.  
  
“You’ve fought for a very long time. It’s okay. You’re done. You don’t have to fight anymore Dave. Thank you.”  
  
Agony spread across his face as his eyes finally closed and you caught his broken form that fell over from exhaustion. It was over now. He went through so much suffering and it was over now. Now he could rest. Light covered the two of you and soon your consciousness faded as well.  
  
******************************************************************  
  
Darkness.  
  
That was what you found yourself in when you came to. Were you unconscious in the first place? You couldn’t remember. You didn’t like that darkness so you began to think of light. Stars and planets appeared all around and you soon found yourself looking down at the earth. You looked at your hands and tentatively moved them, watching as if it was the most fascinating thin in the world to you.  
  
And then the memories rushed in.  
  
You froze and slowly lowered your hands.  
  
You became the most powerful magical child in existence and made a wish to make the kids not turn into witches or demons when their soul gems clouded over too much. You went back to the past and confronted all those kids who were dying and on the verge of turning. You stopped it. You took away their pain. They would just disappear instead of turning into a monster. It was better that way.  
  
But with this sudden power came gratuitous amounts of knowledge. Just because you got rid of witches and demons it did not mean there were no longer threats to the world or no need for magical children any longer. Other creatures would still haunt the world but it would no longer be the souls of lost children. All you could do now was watch over the world. In your state you weren’t sure if you could exist on earth anymore. That meant you couldn’t be with your friends or even Dave.  
  
Dave.  
  
As you went back in time you also saw those timelines Dave kept going back to over and over again. You watched as he desperately tried to keep you alive. Watched as he went through the pain of watching you die over and over again before going back again to prevent it. But why did he do that? Why would he go through all that trouble and suffering? A presence appeared behind you and a soft sound of irregular breath made you turn around. There you found the boy in your thoughts standing before you.  
  
“Hey,” was his greeting.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“So uh. Space pretty big and nice huh,” he attempted conversation staring off farther into the stars.  
  
“Yeah . . .”  
  
“How’d we get here?”  
  
“I brought you here . . . somehow.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“So, I remember everything now,” you decided to tell him, “Well not really remember but I know what um happened in all those other timelines and everything you did.”  
  
“ . . . Okay.”  
  
A silence hung above you. You tried to look at him but it looked like his gaze was elsewhere. He looked unsure.  
  
“Why?” you asked with barely a whisper.  
  
“Why what?”  
  
“Why did you go through all that just for me? All that pain, that misery struggling to keep me alive.”  
  
“What? Are you seriously asking me that? After seeing all those timelines and what I’ve been through you’re asking me?” he swallowed, “It’s because I love you.”  
  
Your heart skipped a beat. Those were the words you were expecting right? That’s what you wanted since that was the way you felt towards him as well . . . right? But then you remembered your wish. The one you made when you first became a magical child. He tried to lean in to kiss you but you quickly pushed him away with panic and stepped back with a hand over your mouth, “God. Fuck. God no I’m so sorry . . . Shit I’m so sorry.”  
  
“Wh . . . what are you talking about? Why are you sorry? Of course I would go through that for the one I love. Why are you apologizing?”  
  
“Because you don’t love me and you shouldn’t have gone through all that,” you looked away horrified at yourself. This was all fake. His feelings for you were fake and it was all because of you.  
  
“What do you mean of course I love you. If I wasn’t then I wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble trying to keep you alive in every timeline that you died.”  
  
“NO YOU DON’T. YOU DON’T LOVE ME AND YOU NEVER HAVE,” you yelled at him when he tried to step towards you.  
  
“WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU RIGHT TO JUDGE AND CLAIM THAT I DON’T!?” surprisingly he yelled back at you. He was quite agitated.  
  
You had to tell him. It wasn’t right deluding him like that after everything he had done for you. He had the right to know. But it would still hurt you in doing so. Shutting your eyes you fell down to your knees as the tears fell. Holding your head you braced yourself for what was to come, “My first wish . . . from the very first timeline. From the timeline you started to go back in time to try to keep me alive. My wish is why you went through all that. It shouldn’t have. If I didn’t make that dumb ass wish you wouldn’t have had to go through all that.”  
  
“. . . What did you wish for?” you heard the slight shake in his words.  
  
“For you to love me,” you answered in a voice that was barely a whisper.  
  
It took him a moment before he could respond, “N-No . . . that’s impossible. I fell in love with you on my own accord. Some dumb wish can’t do that. I . . .”  
  
“ANY AND ALL WISHES COULD BE GRANTED EVEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT,” you couldn’t take it anymore, “THAT’S WHAT I WANTED AND THEN TA DA WISH FUCKING GRANTED. I . . . I didn’t expect it to work actually . . . I just started to do that magical shit and didn’t think it worked because of your attitude towards me the next day. Just normal, cold, cool wannabe, teasing. I saw no difference until I accidentally laughed at one of John’s jokes and saw your face go a little red and I couldn’t believe it. It actually worked.”  
  
You sobbed waiting for what would come next. Would he be revolted? Would he be angry at you? Would he just walk away? Perhaps it was better that way. There appeared to be no way for you two to be together.  
  
He came closer to you and you flinched. Perhaps he was going to hit you, “Hey-”  
  
“I TOLD YOU, YOU DON’T REALLY LOVE ME SO BACK OFF. IT WAS THROUGH THE FUCKING WISH.”  
  
“HEY,” he shouted again and you shut your mouth startled. He held the side of your arms and moved so that he was looking straight into your eyes, “What did that cat freak say to you when you told him your wish?”  
  
You frowned wondering where he was going with this, “He . . . he said it was an easy wish to fulfill.”  
  
“That fucking asshole,” he abruptly hugged you. Out of instinct you tried to push him away but he just held you tighter, “You were scammed you know why? You traded your soul for fucking nothing. I was in love with you long before you made a fake contract with that fucker. You only realized it after you made the deal because you started paying a lot closer attention to me to see if the wish was granted but I’ve loved you way before that.”  
  
“Wh-what?” you held onto the back of his shirt feeling the need to hold onto something in fear of falling away. Could it be true?  
  
“I told you I was in love with you before you became a magical being . . . Long before.”  
  
“But . . . You still had to go through all that. You still did all of that. Went through all that pain because of me,” you held on tighter to him.  
  
“I would go through all of that over and over again just to keep you alive and find a timeline where you wouldn’t have to go through pain.”  
  
“BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR PAIN!?” pushing him away you cried out as the tears continued to flow. Shakily you placed your hands on the sides of his face, “What about you? Why do you have to just think about me? You already did it over and over again. You shouldn’t have. Not for someone like me.”  
  
He puts his hands over yours gently, “It’s fine. It’s over now. Please don’t dwell on it any longer.”  
  
“But-”  
  
“People do crazy things when they’re in love.”  
  
“Oh my god did you really just use that quote,” you wanted to let out a small laugh but it came out with half a sob.  
  
“I did because it’s true and that was a pretty good movie okay.”  
  
You looked at him feeling slightly relieved. He really did love you. It wasn’t fake, it wasn’t because of that dumbass wish, he genuinely loved you with all of his heart. Up close you could see his eyes from behind the shades and you knew from the look in his eyes that it was true.  
  
With eyes closed he leaned into you until your lips met. You reciprocated with a sob. You couldn’t believe it. This was finally happening. You were kissing the one you loved. He held you close and kissed you like it was his last.  
  
“It’s over. We can be together now,” he pulled back and held your face in his hands with a smile. It disappeared when you looked down sorrowfully.  
  
“I can’t be with you,” you whispered again.  
  
You heard him take in a breath as if he was trying not to just suddenly burst out yelling again, “What do you mean? It’s over now. We can-”  
  
“I don’t exist on earth anymore,” you closed your eyes and ignored the pain in your chest, “I’ve become an omniscient being that went back to all those magical children when they were overcome with grief and made sure they didn’t turn into a demon or witch. Because of you going back so many times I’ve become something so powerful that I can’t exist in the mortal world anymore.”  
  
“What?” he let out an exasperated laugh, “No . . . no you can’t just. You can’t.”  
  
You looked back up at him and pulled away. If you kept him here any longer he would cease to exist as well. He didn’t deserve that. You had to take him back.  
  
“ARE YOU TELLING ME I DID ALL OF THAT FOR NOTHING!?” you flinched at the scream you saw coming, “Omniscient that’s like a god right? Can’t you just make yourself exist? This can’t be happening. You have to come back with me.”  
  
“I . . . I don’t know. I,” you looked down and got up, “Right now I have to make sure you make it back. Staying here too long won’t be good for you.”  
  
“Then let me stay,” he takes your hand in his as he gets up as well, “If that means I can be with you then let me stay. Please.”  
  
You shook your head refusing to make eye contact, “I’m sorry. I can’t keep you here. You have to go back. Don’t be so hard on yourself please. You’ve done so much you don’t even know. You’ve protected the rest of your friends. They will be there waiting for you. You don’t need me.”  
  
“Yes I do,” he stated with determination and gripped your hand when you tried to pull away, “You can’t please. I did this all for you. You can’t just. Karkat please I can’t live without you.”  
  
“No. You’re free now. Without me you will no longer be imprisoned to living that week over and over again. It’s okay,” you slipped your hand out of his before holding his face in your hands. You were happy he reciprocated your feelings and as much as you wanted to be with him from now on you knew that you couldn’t, “Thank you for loving me. Goodbye Dave.”  
  
You gave him one last chaste kiss before turning around and walking away. You didn’t turn around when he called your name and asked you to stop over and over again. You stopped and closed your eyes when you heard him scream behind you. By the time you turned around again he was gone. He would be safe now. He would no longer have to suffer for your cause. He would be able to live with his friends and not worry about you. It was fine this way. It was better this way.  
  
************************************************************************************  
  
 _A being watches as time passes_.  
  
A bell has rung indicating the beginning of classes. Students either quickly rush to their classes or stay with their group of friends chatting and taking their time without a worry of being late. Someone bumps into the shoulder of a boy with blonde hair. Without a single word or apology the boy continues walking and the blonde becomes irritated. After fixing his sunglasses he stops walking with his friends and turns to teach the stranger some manners but stops when he sees the familiar figure.  
  
You turn around and watch as the sunglasses slide a tiny bit down his face and revealing his wide and shocked eyes.  
  
You smile.

He runs up and wraps his arms around you. You return the hug for a second before he suddenly pulls back to inspect your face as if to check if you’re real. You just let out an amused breath before kissing him right then and there completely ignoring the looks and whispers from those around you. He is surprised at first but then holds your head and deepens the kiss. A sob escapes from him and you pull back to see tears escaping from his eyes.  
  
“Hey you said I was like a god right so I tried it out. Took a while but I managed to bring myself back. Bonus points I can be a magical kid with you and the rest again too but this time there’s no big ass Reagent Demon to defeat. But if there’s anything else like that again then I can take care of it easy with these kind of powers,” you wiped away a tear from the right side of his face and he kisses you again. Kisses you as if it’s the end of the world. As if you are the last two people on earth. As if there was nothing else after this.  
He pulls back again and up close you can see his eyes. How relieved he is, how that shattered hole inside him was now fixed. And it was because of you.  
  
Arms wrap around you once more and he shakes. He fears of letting you ago again and you disappearing, “I’m never letting you go ever again. You ever try to fucking disappear again then I’m going with you no ifs ands or buts.”  
  
“Sounds good to me.”

This was it. Now you could finally be together. Forever until the end.


End file.
